Climate Change and Societal Transformation

University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna

Overview

Humanity is about to transgress planetary boundaries, with climate change inducing one of the most critical societal challenges. Increasingly, climate change adversely impacts our physical environment and socio-ecological systems so that growing and diverse groups of society call for a low- to zero-carbon transformation. 

This transformation will provide opportunities and risks for a more just society and inevitably will be conflict-laden due to trade-offs, adverse feedbacks among sectors and diverse competing interests.

The Climate Change and Societal Transformation program at University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna integrates 

• a physical understanding of the climate system, its processes and drivers, and climate change and associated impacts, 
• a socio-ecological analysis of the drivers, agents and impacts of climate change and of potential solutions, and

• transformative approaches for a sustainable and just society explicitly taking global North-South dynamics into account. 

Career prospects

The Master’s program qualifies graduates to pursue the following professional activities:

• Teaching and research in inter- and transdisciplinary climate and sustainability science at university level, in public and private research and educational institutions, both at national and international level.
• Development, implementation and assessment of strategies and policies for climate change mitigation and adaptation in the public sector (regional or national administration, international organizations), in non-governmental organizations, (e.g., development, environmental and nature conservation organizations), consulting and advisory firms, statistical offices, sustainability departments, etc.
• Contributing to the development and implementation of solutions for sustainable development in the public and private sector, e.g., business, public administration, non-profit organizations, social and health care, etc.
• Knowledge “translation”, communication, and dissemination: adult education, investigation and media coverage, journalism, (non-)governmental organizations and boundary organizations concerned with environment and climate, etc.