Soas University of London has been a fixture in London’s Bloomsbury for more than 100 years. The elegant brick building was formerly known as the School of Oriental and African Studies, and had been a training ground for Britain’s colonial administrators. Now, however, it has developed a reputation for supporting the unorthodox and offering courses that question the status quo in the study of Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
According to Tom Tanner, director of the university’s Centre for Development, Environment and Policy, the aim is to “break away from the western-centred view that we see on the news, that tends to pigeonhole and stigmatise certain countries”.
It’s a way of thinking that is suited to tackling the climate crisis, and addressing the complexities of weaning whole countries off fossil fuels, while ensuring a just transition.
Take India, he says. Officially, the state-run coal industry employs about 250,000 people, but with subsidiary industries and supply chains, the figure is three times that. As well as the jobs, there are also the freight trains run by the coal industry, which subsidise the vast rail network used by millions of Indians every day, he says.
“You can’t just close Indian coal and re-employ people building wind farms and putting up solar panels. It doesn’t wash. You have to actually think through the transition.
“It’s about the politics of change rather than just talking about how many tonnes of carbon have been saved.”
Similarly, he says, in South Africa the fact that many of the coal mines are Black-owned and in poorer ANC areas means that there’s a lot more to the transition than a simple switch to green energy. “It’s bound up in social and political tensions, as well as pure economics. Thinking those through is what we are trying to teach,” he says.
Soas’s postgraduate courses in development are run online as well as on campus, and have proved popular with professionals looking for specialist knowledge about the climate emergency. They have attracted a diverse range of students, from ambassadors and bankers, to international development professionals.
“They recognise that to do their job they need to be better grounded in the science of climate change and it’s not just something they can absorb in a brief,” Tanner says.
Annick Gillard-Bailetti, from Toronto, recently completed her master’s in climate change and development, having put her career in international development on hold. She was concerned by the impact of the climate crisis and environmental degradation on the global south, and feared that much of the work she had been involved with for the likes of Save the Children and Care International could be undone.
The course offered her the opportunity to specialise, and the flexibility to learn online, which fitted in with her home life, she says. It also gave her a global perspective that she doesn’t feel she would have got otherwise. “Studying alongside a cohort of people from all over the world, which the virtual programme helps facilitate, is wonderful,” she says. “Everyone had a different outlook or set of experiences to bring to the programme.
“There were people who were practising in this space already but wanted to go deeper,” she continues. “And people like me who wanted to develop specialist knowledge so we can apply the climate lens to our work.”
The course helped Gillard-Bailetti to re-pivot her career, and rather than going back to work at a non-governmental organisation (NGO), she has moved into consultancy. Her dissertation on gender equality and climate change has since formed the basis of a major mangrove restoration project in Kenya, and she is now providing technical advice on its implementation.
Jeannot Boussougouth, executive vice-president power and infrastructure at South Africa’s Standard Bank, is also reaping the practical benefits of his master’s. It is helping him to see the bigger picture, he says, and the role that the energy sector has to play in a just transition.
He now has a better understanding of the bank’s role in a lower carbon economy, and where it sits when it comes to climate change mitigation. And that is influencing where the bank chooses to lend its money, with support for initiatives that are diversifying the country’s energy mix.
Thinking differently about the effects of the climate emergency is a major part of Soas’s campus-based undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, and students across the whole university are being urged to consider the impact of the climate crisis, regardless of what subject they’re studying.
As well as delivering climate change and sustainable development programmes, Soas is now integrating climate and sustainability issues across its wider module offerings.
“The justice dimensions of sustainability and climate are absolutely essential,” says Tanner. “Who makes the decisions around climate, and who suffers the consequences?”
But it’s not just about challenging the models that are causing the problems, he adds. “It’s about asking what ideas are there for putting this back together in a way that deals with the crisis – that’s the Soas way.”
Learn to see the world differently – find out more about postgraduate courses in development at Soas
