MSc Environmental Governance

Energy and the City seeks to explore the political and material work performed by historical and contemporary energy circulations in shaping the modern city. We aim to move beyond conventional binaries between disruption and accommodation in understanding urban energy governance, while exploring multiple sites of policy, practice and intervention.

The unit aims to:

• Explore how energy circulations in society shape urbanization processes;
• Interrogate some of the key social and environmental controversies that underpin contemporary practices of urban energy provision and demand;
• Discuss how low-carbon urban energy futures are embedded in contingencies of place, scale and territory;
• Uncover the tensions between policies aimed at promoting sustainable urban energy use on the one hand, and those aiming to address social equity, on the other;
• Unpack racialised, gendered and ableist dimensions of urban energy provision and consumption;
• Question deficit model-based understandings of unsustainable energy behaviours, while moving onto more nuanced and systemic explanations of urban environmental governance.

• WEEK 1: Energy flows and debates: key concepts
• WEEK 2: Energy transitions
• WEEK 3: Geographies of energy consumption
• WEEK 4: Energy security and geopolitics
• WEEK 5: Community, energy and justice
• WEEK 6: Reading week
• WEEK 7: Fuel poverty and energy vulnerability
• WEEK 8: Energy efficiency vs. justice: Grenfell Tower fire
• WEEK 9: Reading week
• WEEK 10: Contested energy landscapes: myths, perceptions, realities
• WEEK 11: Contested geographies of fuelwood exploitation
• WEEK 12: Retrofitting the city

The unit is delivered through online lectures, seminars, students’ readings of key texts and other types of materials such as videos. By using a range of teaching methods, we aim to provide inclusive spaces where knowledge is co-produced by teachers and learners. 

• Understand and be able to outline the reasons, character and consequences of the main social, environmental and political issues arising from the production and consumption of energy in cities across the world;

• Critically analyse and demonstrate how energy geographies can inform the relations between capitalism and urban energy systems and practices; Evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of different theories and explanations; Relate theoretical arguments with empirical evidence;

• Connect theory, politics and policy in achieving just urban energy transitions;

• Critical thinking and reflection;
• Motivation and self-directed learning;

Individual essay – 3000 words (100%)

The aim of the short essay is to use theory in an analysis of topical, everyday urban energy issues. Students need to choose one of the urban energy concepts / debates / controversies discussed in the course, and use this to explore an urban energy related news item of their choice.

Feedback will be provided at a dedicated revision session as well as on a one-to-one basis online.

Students have an opportunity to engage in several stages of formative feedback prior to submitting the coursework, including consultation sessions, a workshop and written formative feedback on a 500 word essay outline. The feedback on their final essay will be provided within the usual turnaround time.