Environmental Studies: Int'l Environmental Governance

Examination of official and informal processes and institutions that have developed among, across, and beyond nation states for global environmental governance. Prerequisite: POLS 1500 or POLS 1015. Cross-listed with: POLS 2560.

Prereqs enforced by the system: POLS 1500 0r POLS 1015; Minimum Sophomore standing. Cross-listed with POLS 2560 A. POLS Honors course; by invitation only. Instructor permission. Total combined enrollment = 20 PACE students by permission and override

This class is designed as a political science honors seminar. You must be in Political Science Honors to enroll. Please contact Dr. Alex Zakaras azakaras@uvm.edu for admission. Concern for Global Environmental Change has rapidly risen to the preeminent issue in relations between international states. There have been success and failures in the international arena, but there has been steady progress on international environmental agreements since the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in 1972. Let’s be honest, that progress may be slower than many want, or than is needed, but it has been progress. Since 1972 there have been dozens of institutions created, and hundreds of international agreements formalized aimed at both protecting and restoring the global environmental commons and/or sections of it.

Our course provides an overview of the increasing governance of the international environmental sphere, the successes in global environmental governance, the current state of that governance, and future considerations. In particular, we will examine international agreements and institutions, how they were created, and how effective they have been. Examples of agreements and institutions: Conference of Parties agreements, Kyoto Protocol, Montreal Protocol, Lake Champlain Basin Program, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, UN Environment Programme, etc.

Course Textbook: "Global Environmental Governance," Morin, Orsini, Jinnah. Majority of reading will be international agreements, scholarly articles, and news articles. There will be 2 test: a midterm and a final. I am looking to do a scaffolded team project this semester where students will build a proposal to bring an environmental project to Burlington/Vermont. This proposal will be something that has worked somewhere outside the US. The proposal will be presented to a sitting member of government.