99220 Planetary Decarbonisation
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Subject handbook information prior to 2025 is available in the Archives.
Credit points: 12 cp
Result type: Grade and marks
Requisite(s): 99215 Sustainability in Context OR 99221 Sustainability in Context
Anti-requisite(s): 94679 Complexity and Sustainable Futures
Description
This subject focuses on social sciences and humanities approaches to the energy transition for planetary decarbonisation and sustainable futures. Students learn to debate key ideas about fossil fuel-based societies and the transition to carbon-neutral conditions, especially for the historically coal-intensive economies of the Asia Pacific region with emphasis on Australia, China, India, Indonesia, and the United States. Topics focus on place-based challenges for urban and industrial environments in local-global relations and examine national and international policy challenges for post-carbon governance with concerns for ethics of shared responsibility. The subject adopts problem-solving approaches based on learning theoretical and practical tools, including complexity, emergence, networks, systems, wicked problems, and data visualisation, to support analysis of sustainability goals in nature-society relations.
Subject learning objectives (SLOs)
| a. | Identify approaches based on theory and data for assessment of the energy transition |
|---|---|
| b. | Compare and analyse a variety of theoretical and empirical approaches to decarbonisation for given country contexts |
| c. | Reflect on how goals and exigencies of the energy transition unevenly challenge countries globally |
| d. | Assess and innovate the possibilities and limits of change for future-oriented transformation |
| e. | Develop and apply approaches to given contexts through individual and group writing and presentations |
Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs)
This subject engages with the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes (CILOs), which are tailored to the Graduate Attributes set for all graduates of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (INT = International Studies CILOs):
- Employ teamwork and independent insight to understand and operationalise sustainability objectives (SE.1.1)
- Evaluate and assess the impact of sustainability initiatives (SE.1.2)
- Devise creative and evidence-based solutions to sustainability challenges (SE.2.2)
- Employ knowledge from and about local and international contexts to account for the differential impacts of sustainability needs and solutions (SE.3.1)
- Act ethically and responsibly to promote sustainability within civic and international contexts (SE.5.1)
- Communicate complex concepts clearly and effectively to a variety of audiences (SE.6.1)
Teaching and learning strategies
Teaching and learning activities take four main forms:
- Online content for active weekly self-study in advance of the three-hour lecture-seminars.
- Eight x 2-3hr in class face-to-face lecture-seminars. Students discuss and debate weekly materials, try out new ideas and contest questions, and consolidate knowledge through seven corresponding post-seminar quizzes.
- Two x 3hr face-to-face group work preparation workshops that will support students to adopt new topics for the class essay and new approaches for the selected case study analysis.
- Two x 3hr face-to-face group presentation session with external panellists.
Online modules guide students through the curated readings and audio-visual material. Students’ receive notifications on tracked self-study progress.
Students receive progress feedback via weekly post-seminar quizzes before and after the census date. Quiz questions are contextualised in the relevant content.
The eight 3hr lecture-seminars incorporate emerging knowlege of specialist researchers on decarbonisation strategies and the emerging energy transition in the Asia Pacific region.
For the transdisciplinary project, 'Possibilities for Decarbonisation and Energy Transition in the Asia Pacific', students will be allocated into transdisciplinary groups to compare and analyse future change based on emerging knowledge. Students will be supported by the pre-presentation 3hr workshop to compare strategies and develop the group presentations. Final presentations will be made to a panel including external specialists.
The teaching and learning approaches of this subject, moving beyond debate over climate change, equip students with knowledge and problem-solving approaches, including complexity, emergence, networks, systems, wicked problems, data visualisation and net-zero planning, to analyze future scenarios of the energy transition and pathways for local, national and global decarbonisation. Developing approches to decarbonisation supports shifting the societal conversation to the future of energy sustainability with diverse stakeholders.
Content (topics)
The energy transition is the necessary process of transitioning from carbon-based to sustainable energy sources for the future of climate change remediation. Planetary Decarbonisation is an innovation subject. It addresses the challenge of future conditions, and rather than relying on existing cases and established approaches, it recognizes the unknown factors of planetary change and identifies the potential of innovative approaches for real-world and future contexts. Such wicked problems and their potential solutions cannot be definitively pinned down. As a subject in FASS, it incorporates humanistic dimensions of engaging change, including narrative representations of the energy transition; equity and justice at multiple scales; and leadership and responsibility based on ethical values for diverse communities. As a social sciences subject it draws on current scientific knowledge and scientifically based decision-making processes. Particular focus will be given to China, as consumer of half the world’s coal currently produced and Australia’s prominent economic partner in coal resources extraction and use. As an interdisciplinary subject, it equips students with capacity to identify multiple interrelated strands of human-environment relations and their diverse contexts.
Assessment
Assessment task 1: Quiz – Assembling knowledge and tools for the energy transition
| Objective(s): | a | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight: | 20% | ||||||||
| Length: | Each of nine quizzes has eight multiple-choice questions. | ||||||||
| Criteria linkages: |
SLOs: subject learning objectives CILOs: course intended learning outcomes |
Assessment task 2: Essay — Exploring the International Energy Transition
| Objective(s): | b, c, d and e | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight: | 30% | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Length: | 3000 words excluding references. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Criteria linkages: |
SLOs: subject learning objectives CILOs: course intended learning outcomes |
Assessment task 3: Transdisciplinary group presentation and report
| Objective(s): | a, b, c, d and e | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight: | 30% | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Length: | 15-minute presentation with dedicated Q & A session | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Criteria linkages: |
SLOs: subject learning objectives CILOs: course intended learning outcomes |
Assessment task 4: Individual written report
| Objective(s): | a, b, c, d and e | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight: | 20% | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Length: | 1500-word report excluding references. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Criteria linkages: |
SLOs: subject learning objectives CILOs: course intended learning outcomes |
Required texts
Sharpe, S. (2023). Five Times Faster: Rethinking the Science, Economics, and Diplomacy of Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Required and recommended readings will be available via UTS Library and on the Canvas site.
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