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Cities and Climate Change

Home/ Cities and Climate Change
Course Type Course Code No. Of Credits
Discipline Core NA 4

Course coordinator and team:- Adjunct/Visiting Faculty, Dr. Rohit Negi (Coordinator)

Course Details:

  1. Summary

Climate change has fast emerged as a major social concern, with the potential to disrupt the lives of people the world over. Extreme weather events like cloudbursts, cyclones, and hurricanes are as much a consequence of climate change as are ‘slower’ processes like increasing temperatures and sea level rise. Cities are imbricated in these developments both as significant--and growing-- contributors to the causal factors behind climate change, as well as places where its effects are keenly felt. Urban flooding due to extreme rainfall patterns are being witnessed in India with increasing frequency from Srinagar to Chennai, and most recently, in Hyderabad. On the other hand, coastal cities must prepare for increased incidences of debilitating storms and cyclones even as they negotiate sea level rise. Elsewhere, the changing hydrology due to the melting of glaciers call upon urban actors to engage in long-term planning for water. The course delves into these issues, the concepts through which the relations between climate and cities have been analysed, and the planning instruments that have been developed and operationalised in response to climate concerns.

  1. Objectives
    • To build an understanding of climate change, especially as it concerns urban regions
    • To develop expertise in concepts through which these changes are understood and acted on
    • To become familiar with planning practices and instruments aimed at ameliorating climate change causes and effects
    • To reinforce critical thinking and effective communication
  2. Expected Learning Outcome:

On the completion of the course, students should be able to:

    • Critically analyse the linkages of cities with climate change
    • Contribute to conversations on policy, advocacy and planning related to urban climate change
    • Contextualise urban environmental issues in a historical and conceptual background
  1. Overall structure:

This course is organized around six units.

 

Topic / Unit

Duration

1.

What is climate change?

1 week

2.

The urban process, climate change, and just transitions

2 week

3.

Vulnerability, mitigation, and adaptation to climate change

2 weeks

4.

Resilience and transformation

2 weeks

5.

Planning for climate change

3 weeks

6.

Right to the city and climate justice

2 weeks

Required Readings

  • Klein, Naomi. 2015. This Changes Everything: Capitalism v the Climate. Simon and Schuster. Ch 1 (Introduction)
  • Gandy, M. 2012. ‘Where does the city end?’, Architectural Design, https://doi.org/10.1002/ad.1363
  • Bulkeley, ch 1 (Climate Change and Urban Problem) Rosenzweig et al, Part 3 (Urban Sectors)
  • Dodman, D. 2009. Blaming cities for climate change? An analysis of urban greenhouse emissions inventories. Environment and Urbanization 21(1): 185-201.
  • Klinenberg, Eric. 2015. Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago. University of Chicago Press. Introduction: The City of Extreme
  • Hughes, S. and M. Hoffmann. 2020. ‘Just urban transitions: Towards a research agenda’, WIREs Climate Change, https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.640.
  • Bulkeley, ch 2 (climate risk and vulnerability in the city) and ch 5 (climate change mitigation and low-carbon cities)
  • Martens, P et al. 2009. The climate change challenge: linking vulnerability, adaptation, and mitigation. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 1(1): 14-18.
  • Intro      to      climate       change       impacts,       Climate      Literacy,      available       from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pSoQXgnn5s
  • Bulkeley, ch 6 (urban adaptation-towards climate-resilient cities)
  • Tyler, S. and M. Moench. 2012. A framework for urban climate resilience, Climate and Development, 4(4): 311-326
  • Pelling, Mark. 2011. Adaptation to Climate Change. Routledge. Ch 5 (Adaptation as transformation)
  • Chatterjee, D et al. 2016. Gorakhpur: A Case Study of Resiliency. International Planning History                                Society                    Proceedings.                    Available                    from https://journals.open.tudelft.nl/iphs/article/download/1244/1842/
  • Bulkeley, ch 7 (Climate change experiments and alternatives in the city)
  • Bhardwaj, A and R Khosla. 2020. Superimposition: How Indian city bureaucracies are responding to climate change. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space. https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848620949096
  • Blakely, E J. 2007. Urban Planning for Climate Change. Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Available                                                                                                                           from
  • https://www.lincolninst.edu/sites/default/files/pubfiles/1310_blakely_final.pdf
  • O’Neill, M. 2020. How Urban Planners are Reacting to Climate Change. Architectural Digest.                                                                   Available                                                        from https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/climate-change-design-urban-planning
  • Steele, W et al. 2015. Urban climate justice: creating sustainable pathways for humans and other species. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 14: 121-126.

Pedagogy:

  1. Instructional design

The course will be a combination of lectures, discussions, and site visits/fieldwork.

  1. Special needs (facilities,requirements in terms of software, studio, lab, clinic, library,

classroom/others instructional space; any other – please specify) Transportation for site visits.

  1. Expertise in AUD faculty or outside

The course has been developed in consultation with external experts. There is limited capacity within SGA and AUD to teach the course. Regular/visiting/adjunct faculty will be required for transaction of this course.

  1. Linkages with external agencies (e.g., with field-based organizations, hospital; any others)

The course is a potential vehicle to develop further linkages with organisations like TERI and Centre for Policy Research, which have research and/or teaching programmes in the area.

Assessment structure (modes and frequency of assessments) The course will have three types of assessment situations.

  •  
  • Response papers about 500 words each (45%): Students submit three short responses (15% each) to a set of questions around the course units.
  • A group-based project (25%) will involve documentation of a climate justice issue, whether fast (e.g. flood, heat) or slow (e.g. accumulating toxins).
  • The third assessment will be the final examination (30%).
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