Over 130 countries, 241 cities, and 820 of the world's largest corporations are now committed to delivering net zero
emissions as part of the global effort to meet the United Nations Paris target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees
centigrade above pre-industrial levels. At the same time, many parts of the world are already experiencing significant
damage as a result of climate change, inferring the need for loss and damage policies to address associated losses,
whilst many are also actively working to design and implement adaptation policies.

There is, however, a highly complex politics that sits behind these, increasingly varied, attempts to mitigate for, adapt
to, and develop loss and damage funds as a result of, climate change. This is partly because the implications of
climate change are experienced in such an uneven manner, responsibility for historic and current emissions is
concentrated in the Global North and BRICS countries, and, crucially, because no administration, be it global,
national, local or corporate, yet has all the answers regarding how to address climate change and its societal
implications.

As such, this module introduces students to: A variety of policies currently in place to meet the challenges of climate
change; The main political actors responsible for climate policy making and reaching global agreement; Orthodox and
alternative political ideas about how to understand climate change and how to address it; The main themes that
dominate political debates about climate change today.

In doing so, this module offers students the tools with which to think critically about current approaches to governing
for climate change, to evaluate key challenges and opportunities, and, using this knowledge, think creatively about
how to meet net zero emissions targets in a just and lasting manner.

This main aim of this module is to equip students with an understanding of the different ways in which climate change
is governed, by whom, why some choices are made and others sidelined, and what the key obstacles to, and
opportunities for, meeting GHG emissions reduction targets are. By picking apart, exploring, and better understanding
the ideational and interest-based foundations of climate change policies, and governing institutions, this module offers
students an in-depth introduction to why governing for climate change is so complex and, at times, frustrating.
Revealing political details and complexity is useful on its own terms, but doing so can also help us to identify that what
needs to be overcome to improve current attempts to address climate change.