Broadly understood, scholarship on climate change and development remains in its infancy.  Whereas there has been an extensive attention paid to both issues through the years, only recently they have come together both as a field of inquiry and practice.  Historically development policies emphasized centrally sponsored programs of change and large-scale projects to foment economic growth.  Scholarship in the human dimensions of climate change have mostly focused on anthropogenic drives and mitigation and only more recently has started to explore impacts and adaptation more seriously.  This class seeks to bring these two themes together by focusing on how development and climate change intersect both in policy design and implementation as well as a new focus of research and production of knowledge.

The course is organized around themes interspersing climate change and development.  Part 1 is a historical look on development theory and practice and the emergence of climate change as a critical stressor to be taken into account for future policy making. Part 2 focuses on potential impacts of climate change in less developed countries.  Part 3 explores response options with an emphasis on adaptation, resource management, to the emergence of global institutions for environmental governance.