Photo of Uppsala University Main Building, a late 1800s brick building, with December snow and winter cold

Uppsala University Main Building, December 16, 2022, photo by Daniel Mossberg.

Welcome to the course and week 1

Welcome to the Climate Change Leadership and Transitions in Practice open online course and week 1! We at CEMUS, The Centre for Environment and Development Studies and Uppsala University invite you to an educational journey that will both broaden and deepen your understanding of climate change leadership, and give you the opportunity to connect your own experiences to the different topics covered in the course.

Week 1: Putting climate change leadership into context: past and present

During the first week we’ll take stock of the Paris Agreement, learn the basics about climate change impacts and explore the relationship between society and nature from a historical perspective. The video from the UN Environment Programme below frames the challenges we face and what is needed now and in the years to come.

The Emissions Gap Report is UNEP's spotlight report launched annually in advance of the annual Climate negotiations. The EGR tracks the gap between where global emissions are heading with current country commitments and where they ought to be to limit warming to 1.5°C. Each edition explores ways to bridge the emissions gap. In addition to providing an update on where global GHG emissions are heading and where they should be, the 2023 edition focuses on energy transitions in low- and middle-income countries and looks at the role of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in bridging the emissions gap. This year is a crucial year as it is the Global Stocktake, the EGR launches a week ahead of COP28 and will serve as a key input to the Global Stocktake. Read the full report here: www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2023

Invite your friends and colleagues

There is still time to invite friends and colleagues to join the course and take part alongside you. Having the support of people you know can really enrich the experience of studying online. They can start at www.cemus.uu.se/ccl-mooc/.

How it works

The course is intended to be studied over five weeks with around four hours of weekly study time. It is organised in steps where you can set your own pace and divide up the time you spend studying per day. A lot of the material in the course can be listened to while taking a walk, cooking or travelling.

When you feel that you are done with a step just click the Next »-button, you can always go back to a previous step and jump between different weeks if you need to go back and pick up a reference, idea or quote. To keep track of your own progress it is recommended to get a digital or paper notebook where you can take notes, write down ideas and mark a step as complete when you are done.

In this short video What is a MOOC? you can get an introduction to what a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) is. And in the course trailer here you get an overview of the course and how it is stuctured.

Connecting with educators and other learners

This is the CEMUS MOOC team of educators that are working on the course.

Daniel Mossberg
Lead Educator CCL MOOC 2016-2017 and 2022-2024
Lead Outreach Coordinator and Educational Coordinator CEMUS
daniel.mossberg@cemus.uu.se
+46-730650228

Francis Rogers
Lead Educator CCL MOOC 2022
Course Coordinator Alumni CEMUS

Aster Tommasini
Lead Educator CCL MOOC 2022
Course Coordinator Alumni CEMUS

You can connect with other learners through the comments section through the course run here on Uppsala University’s studium page Climate Change Leadership (open from January 15, 2024), on Twitter @cclmooc, use the hashtag #cemuscclmooc and in the open Facebook group www.facebook.com/groups/5133830743383403.

Once again warmly welcome to the Climate Change Leadership and Transitions in Practice course! Remember to mark this step as ‘complete’ in your digital or printed notebook before you move on to the next one.

© CEMUS and Uppsala University

© Graphic design, animation, recording and video editing by Ingrid M. Rieser 2016

© Updates and video editing by Daniel Mossberg 2022-2023

Note: any external links in this course will take you to third-party websites, which may ask for your personal details.