290023 PS Global Development in the Era of Climate Change: Perspectives from Population Geography (2021S)

In recent years, climate change has become one of the most important topics in geography and especially in geographical development research. Key questions include the interrelations between demographic, social and economic development processes on the one hand and processes of climate and environmental change on the other. The causal relationships are reciprocal: while the effects of climate change undermine the achievement of global and national development goals, the question of how "development" can function in line with cutting emissions is becoming increasingly urgent. In the seminar, these interdependencies will be discussed on the basis of selected topics.
After the seminar, the participants should be able:
- understand and critically evaluate the interrelationships between climate change and development, in particular the main impacts of climate change on human development, but also of demographic, social and economic development processes on climate change;
- to independently access, understand, classify and evaluate relevant specialised information (literature, data, statistics) on the topic;
- to better understand, critically question and evaluate societal economic processes and political measures and their impacts on climate change and development;
- to further develop their understanding of these interrelationships in relation to specific topics in which they are particularly interested.

In the seminar we will deal with four major topics:
- Influence of economic, social and demographic (development) processes on emissions and climate change: role of population growth, consumption, technology; (de-?)coupling of economic growth and emissions; etc.
- Impact of climate and environmental change on development: challenges and problems arising from climate change for development goals (e.g. food security, agriculture, economic growth, migration, health, urbanisation, disaster risk, etc.);
- National and global policy mechanisms that currently exist or are emerging (SGDs, UNFCCC process/Paris Agreement, NAPs, Green Climate Fund, etc.).
- Climate (in)justice, global linkages and critical perspectives: of economy, commodities, growth and of responsibility, justice and (neo)colonial stumbling blocks.
Working forms are the joint analysis and discussion of relevant literature and documents on the topic, the independent research of sources and materials, the presentation of work results in the form of presentations and panel discussions as well as their written elaboration in seminar papers. The seminar focuses increasingly on cooperative working techniques. Collaborative tools are used for online implementation.