Readings

Week 1 · Mon Aug 24 · Wed Aug 26

Intro; physical effects

Intro

• Are We the Last Generation — or the First Sustainable One? | Hannah Ritchie | TED
• VoxDev — Climate change politics developing countries
• The Polycrisis — Scorched earth

Week 2 · Mon Aug 31

Coal, industrialization, and slavery

No class Wednesday 9/2.

• Allen, Robert C. "Backward into the future: The shift to coal and implications for the next energy transition." Energy policy 50 (2012): 17-23.
• Bailey, Ronald. "The other side of slavery: black labor, cotton, and textile industrialization in Great Britain and the United States." Agricultural History 68.2 (1994): 35-50.
• Pomeranz, Kenneth. The great divergence: China, Europe, and the making of the modern world economy. Princeton University Press, 2000. Ch 1: EUROPE BEFORE ASIA? POPULATION, CAPITAL ACCUMULATION, AND TECHNOLOGY IN EXPLANATIONS OF EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT
• Trade Talks — 173 did britains slave trade help drive its industrial revolution
• OPTIONAL: Stepchange. Coal: Part I: The Black Rock That Built Our World. Jan 20, 2025.

Week 3 · Wed Sep 9

Colonialism and resource extraction

Single session this week

• Barak, On. "Outsourcing: Energy and empire in the age of coal, 1820-1911." International Journal of Middle East Studies (2015): 425-445.
• Headrick, Daniel R. "The tools of imperialism: Technology and the expansion of European colonial empires in the nineteenth century." The Journal of Modern History 51.2 (1979): 231-263.
• Sultana, Farhana. "The unbearable heaviness of climate coloniality" Political Geography 99
• Táíwò, Olúfẹ́mi O. Reconsidering reparations. Oxford University Press, 2022. Ch 5: What’s Next: Why Reparations Require Climate Justice
• OPTIONAL: Stepchange. Coal: Part II: Global Dominance and Modern Challenges. Apr 27, 2025.

Week 4 · Mon Sep 14 · Wed Sep 16

Trade; environmental treaties

Trade

• Bernauer, Thomas, and Quynh Nguyen. "Free trade and/or environmental protection?." Global Environmental Politics 15.4 (2015): 105-129
• Birdsall, Nancy, and David Wheeler. "Trade policy and industrial pollution in Latin America: where are the pollution havens?." The Journal of Environment & Development 2.1 (1993): 137-149.

Environmental Kuznets Curve

• VoxDev — Trade or trees
• New York Times — Use Energy, Get Rich and Save the Planet
• New York Times — The richer is greener curve

Week 5 · Mon Sep 21 · Wed Sep 23

Pollution; Deforestation

General

• Baragwanath, Kathryn, and Saad Gulzar. "Democracy and the Environment." Annual Review of Political Science 29 (2026).

Deforestation

• Sanford, Luke. "Democratization, elections, and public goods: the evidence from deforestation." American Journal of Political Science 67.3 (2023): 748-763.
• VoxDev — Who owns the mine matters for deforestation
• VoxDev — Can political representation boost forest conservation?
• VoxDev — National policy reversals and deforestation in the Amazon

Pollution

• VoxDev — Strengthening bureaucrat incentives can curb crop burning and save lives
• VoxDev — Downstream impacts of mines: how pollution hits agriculture

Week 6 · Mon Sep 28 · Wed Sep 30

COP

Climate agreements

• Maizland, Lindsay. "Global climate agreements: Successes and failures." Council on Foreign Relations 23 (2021).
• Sunstein, Cass R. "Of Montreal and Kyoto: a tale of two protocols." Harv. Envtl. L. Rev. 31 (2007): 1.

Global preferences

• Bush, Sarah Sunn, and Amanda Clayton. "Facing change: Gender and climate change attitudes worldwide." American Political Science Review 117.2 (2023): 591-608.
• Gazmararian, Alexander F., and Helen V. Milner. "Experience and self‐interest: Diverging responses to global warming." American Journal of Political Science (2025).

Week 7 · Mon Oct 5 · Wed Oct 7

History: oil; critical minerals

History – Oil

• Colgan, Jeff. Partial hegemony: Oil politics and international order. Oxford University Press, 2021. Chapter 3 - The Rise of OPEC
• The Polycrisis — Gulf drama kings demand destruction 02
• NPR — Oil pipeline uganda community family

Critical minerals

• Volts — How can Africa benefit from critical minerals
• VoxDev — Critical minerals and economic development in Africa
• VoxDev — Five things to know about critical minerals
• VoxDev — How Peru transformed natural resource wealth into local economic development

Week 8 · Mon Oct 12 · Wed Oct 14

Renewable energy

Renewable energy – international

• VoxDev — Ray of hope: the rise of solar energy in China
• VoxDev — Rise of Vietnam's solar panel industry
• Volts — What's going on with China these days?

Renewable energy – domestic

• Dubash, Navroz K., Ashwini K Swain, Parth Bhatia. "The Disruptive Politics of Renewable Energy" The India Forum. July 5, 2019
• VoxDev — How developing the renewable energy sector increased employment in Brazil
• VoxDev — Why Pakistan locked overpriced and environmentally damaging power sector
• Volts — Pakistans solar boom
• NPR — Solar power panels boom Pakistan

Week 10 · Mon Oct 26 · Wed Oct 28

Migration — causes; consequences

Migration – causes

• Tandon, Ayesha. "In-depth Q&A: How does climate change drive human migration?" Carbon Brief. 10 April 2024.
• VoxDev — Climate change and rural livelihoods how extreme heat drives international

Migration – consequences

• Spilker, Gabriele, Quynh Nguyen, Vally Koubi, and Tobias Böhmelt. "Attitudes of urban residents towards environmental migration in Kenya and Vietnam." Nature Climate Change 10, no. 7 (2020): 622-627.
• Castellano, Rachel, Nives Dolšak, and Aseem Prakash. "Willingness to help climate migrants: A survey experiment in the Korail slum of Dhaka, Bangladesh." PloS one 16.4 (2021): e0249315.
• Arias, Sabrina B., and Christopher W. Blair. "Changing tides: public attitudes on climate migration." The Journal of Politics 84.1 (2022): 560-567.

Week 11 · Mon Nov 2 · Wed Nov 4

Violence; conflict

Violence

• VoxDev — Gendered effects climate change evidence droughts rural India
• VoxDev — How cold weather increases domestic violence in Peru
• Koubi, Vally. "Climate change and conflict." Annual review of political science 22.1 (2019): 343-360.

Conflict

• Mach, K.J., Kraan, C.M., Adger, W.N. et al. Climate as a risk factor for armed conflict. Nature 571, 193–197 (2019) DOI
• VoxDev — Climate change, natural resources, and conflict: navigating a complex nexus
• VoxDev — How climate-induced conflict is shaping rural Nigeria
• VoxDev — When rising food prices fuel state violence
• VoxDev — Can restricting mining reduce violent conflict

Week 12 · Mon Nov 9 · Wed Nov 11

Climate finance — determinants; effects

Climate finance – determinants

• Volts — Climate finance interrupted
• VoxDev — Climate capital and conscience who will pay global energy transition
• VoxDev — Debt leading unsustainable exploitation natural resources
• NPR — Do polluters pay or do they get paid

Climate finance – effects – JETP

• Gamso, Jonas. "Does climate aid reduce perceived climate risks to foreign direct investors?." Climate and Development(2025): 1-11.
• Carnegie Endowment — The just energy transition partnership crossroads
• CGD — Just energy transition partnerships early successes and challenges indonesia and south

Week 13 · Mon Nov 16 · Wed Nov 18

Supply chains — corporations; CBAM

Supply chains – corporations

• VoxDev — Industrial resilience climate disasters evidence ecuador
• Volts — Fashions climate impact and how to
• Trade Talks — 190 climate change floods and the future of auto supply chains

Supply chains – carbon markets

• Trade Talks — 156 tackling climate change with a carbon border adjustment mechanism
• NPR — Episode 472 the one page plan to fix global warming revisited

Week 14 · Mon Nov 30 · Wed Dec 2

Carbon offsets — principles; applications

Carbon offsets – principles

• Andonova, Liliana B., and Yixian Sun. "Private governance in developing countries: Drivers of voluntary carbon offset programs." Global Environmental Politics 19.1 (2019): 99-122.
• VoxDev — Additionality what it means why its crucial fight against climate change
• Volts — Should we block some sunlight to
• NPR — Transcripts

Carbon offsets – applications

• VoxDev — Does subsidising cleaner cookstoves backfire lessons rwanda
• VoxDev — Paying pollute how carbon offsets actually raised emissions china
• VoxDev — How philippines sequestered carbon while reducing poverty and creating
• VoxDev — Do carbon offsets work evidence worlds largest offset programme