Environment and Climate Change

The Environment and Climate Change Study Group welcomes a broad range of interests related to the Environment, Development and Climate Change. We analyse the Environment and Development from perspectives grounded in Political economy, Political ecology, Feminist, Indigenous, LGBTQIA2S+ and other emerging analytical lenses. One of our major focuses is on anthropogenic climate change, where the core issue remains the tension between historic emissions generated primarily by industrialized Global North nations and the disproportionate impacts experienced by the countries in the Global South. Over nearly three decades, global economic and socio-environmental responses to climate change have not only failed to address this disparity but have also generated new forms of socio-economic and environmental inequality, thus exacerbating climate change and climate mitigation impacts. Least-developed countries, Island nations, and regions in the Global South—particularly across Africa, Asia, and South America—as well as Indigenous populations and low-income, lower-class, and caste-oppressed communities worldwide, now face emerging forms of climate and environmental injustice.

This study group offers a collaborative platform for academics, researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and activists to discuss ongoing research on climate change and development. Our work emphasizes the importance of equity and justice in crafting climate adaptation, mitigation, and policy, with a special focus on Global South countries. We analyse climate change and climate action through critical perspectives to advocate and inform more just and effective climate adaptation, mitigation, advocacy, and action.

Key Focus Areas

1. Environment and Development in the Global South
2. Re-thinking Environment, Development and Climate Change
3. Re-thinking Development Studies after Climate Change
4. Energy Transitions and Development in the Global South
5. Indigenous Knowledge and Community-Led Solutions to Climate Adaptation
6. UNFCCC and IPCC Processes and Climate Policy
7. National and Local Climate Policies and Development
8. Climate Justice, Green Colonialism and Climate Coloniality
9. Climate Finance, Debt Traps and Development Climate Resilient Development
10. Economic Impacts and Climate Finance
11. Development in the Anthropocene
12. Decolonizing Climate Policy and Development Narratives
13. Climate Justice Movements and Development
14. Decolonial Climate Justice

Activities

• Research seminars, workshops, and one-day conferences
• One meeting per year at the DSA conference
• Panel(s) at the DSA annual conference
• Publication of outputs as edited volumes and journal special issues
• UNFCCC and IPCC events participation (COP meetings)

Convenors

Ajmal Khan A.T (Assistant Professor, Shiv Nadar University, India and Associate Fellow, Harvard University)

[email protected]

ann-elise lewallen (Associate Professor, University of Victoria, Canada)

[email protected]

Mailing list

If you’d like to keep up to date with news and events from the ECC study group, please sign up here. If not already, please consider becoming a member of DSA before signing up to a study group.

 

Forthcoming events

DSA2025 Panel: Justice in Crisis: Climate and Ecological Crisis and Justice
https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/dsa2025/p/16361

Previous events

February 2020, ECCI, University of Edinburgh

Making Interdisciplinarity work in Environmental Change Research

Jointly organised by: Centre for Sustainable Forests and Landscapes, University of Edinburgh & DSA’s Environment, Natural Resources and Climate Change Study Group

 

May 2017, University of Birmingham

Analysing natural resource governance: learning from contrasting approaches

Organised by Fiona Nunan, International Development Department, University of Birmingham, and Mikkel Funder, Danish Institute for International Studies

 

Several of the contributions were subsequently included in the Governing Renewable Natural Resources: Theories and frameworks (edited by F. Nunan), published in 2020 by Routledge.

 

Other news

Making Climate Compatible Development Happen

This edited volume, published by Routledge, contains chapters by members of the study group and is co-branded by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (cdkn.org). The genesis of the Making Climate Compatible Development Happen began with a panel session at the DSA conference in 2013, at which several of the contributors to the volume presented. The volume is edited by Fiona Nunan.