This year, UCL’s interdisciplinary Global Citizenship Programme included a new strand on Global Environmental Justice, headed up by the Faculty of Laws. Convenor of the strand, Jane Holder, Professor of Environmental Law, worked with speakers, lecturers and teachers from a wide range of professional backgrounds and disciplines to develop a course on the justice, fairness, and equality issues at the centre of climate change.
During the two week long course first and second year students from many different departments in UCL engaged with artists, film makers, lawyers, policy makers, community activists and student divestment campaigners to develop a critically informed approach to this challenge.
A key part of the course was a simulated UN-style conference, led by Linda Siegele, PhD researcher at the Faculty of Laws, UCL and Feja Lesniewska, School of Law, SOAS. This conference foreshadows the Global Stocktaking exercise agreed at the 2015 Paris Conference of the Parties (COP 21). The simulation involved students making opening statements on behalf of nation states as a precursor to participating in a negotiating exercise. The proceedings were filmed by a ‘media group’ of students with the help of UCL documentary film maker Dieter Deswarte.
During this strand on the Global Citizenship programme students developed key skills: poster making and graphic design, filming and editing, and campaigning. Working together to develop these skills gave the students an opportunity to combine knowledge and methods from their disciplinary and jurisdictional backgrounds. This created the conditions for lively discussion, and contextual and grounded learning on the ideals and realities of global citizenship.