Experiential Learning in Times of Climate Crisis

Abstract Studies of negotiations pedagogy have found that roleplays and simulations play a critical role in successfully teaching international politics but are significantly underused. There has been little reflection on using simulations and roleplays in teaching and learning about global climate justice. In the last few years, we have designed a structured and scaffolded simulation of an international climate negotiation carried out in-person several times at University of California at Berkeley’s International Environmental Politics class and recently for the first time at University of San Francisco’s Global Environmental Politics class. The exercise is based on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – historically, the 2015 Paris Agreement, and subsequent negotiations. Drawing on various iterations of this exercise and the lessons we learned from it, as well as on accounts from students who have participated in the last couple of years, we propose a model to conceptualize and put into practice international negotiations pedagogy as it pertains to the international climate regime. Drawing on our experience conceiving and implementing this exercise, we argue that its emphasis on justice claims, empathy, and an ethically informed sense of student agency in and beyond the classroom contributes to and is in dialogue with scholarship on international negotiations pedagogy.