POLI8023 A selected topic in public management [Section 2A, 2024]
Course Title: Politics and Public Administration in the Era of Climate Change
Teacher: Professor WONG Kam Sing 黃錦星
Schedule: February – April 2025
No. of Credits: 6
Course Schedule
The course is designed to have 10 evening sessions (Tuesday 6:30pm – 9:30pm) at HKU, plus a full-day site visit on a Sunday (tentatively 23 Feb 2025, 9:30am – 4:30pm to EcoPARK and T·PARK). For 6 out of the 10 evening sessions, special guests will be invited for broadening the experience sharing with the class on the respective thematic topics.
Course Description
This course will take the portfolio of climate change and environmental policy in Hong Kong as an example to illustrate the local experience and observations in the practice of public policy and administration. The course contents will be largely based on selected policy cases to illustrate the practices and challenges. The relevant issues such as political accountability, political and policy processes, executive-legislative relationship, public engagement, control of public utility companies, and public education and publicity will also be touched on.
Major topics of this course are as follows:
- Policy blueprints on HongKong’s climate and environmental actions;
- Experience of formulating HongKong’s climate and environmental policies;
- Challenges in driving HongKong’s climate and environmental policies.
The coursework will include both individual submissions and a group project. The course will have 6 thematic topics. After each thematic learning session, each student will be required to submit a concise one-page summary on the learning outcome. For the group project, the class will be divided into student teams. The group project name will be “Yes Minister”.
Course Objectives & Learning Outcomes
The objectives of this course are to:
- introduce the importance and latest trend of climate and environmental policies;
- illustrate the processes and challenges in formulating HongKong’s climate and environmental policies;
- improve the awareness of climate emergency and discuss how we should work together urgently.
By the end of the course, students should be able to:
- describe the climate and environmental policies in Hong Kong and why they are increasingly important;
- demonstrate an understanding of how the climate and environmental policies have been formulated;
- discuss how climate/environmental policies can be enhanced through innovation, integration,interaction, etc.;
- experience teamwork involving members with different background in problem-solving and generating novel solutions to public issues in the era of climate change.