This programme is focused on understanding processes, both natural and anthropogenic, which have contributed to contemporary environmental problems and which threaten to transform our environment.

Emphasis is placed on techniques for reconstructing recent environmental change, methods of contemporary monitoring and providing the context for predicted possible future consequences.

The degree draws upon staff expertise from across the School of Environmental Sciences, and has a strong practical component including specialist training in a wide variety of field and laboratory techniques. The course has recently benefited from substantial investment in teaching facilities and equipment. 

A variety of assessment approaches are used including, oral and poster presentations, reports, essays and field notebooks. Teaching is provided in a range of environments and formats, including field, seminars, lectures, small group and laboratory.

For a Diploma, students will complete and be assessed on eight months of coursework. For the MSc, an additional four months will be spent preparing and submitting a dissertation based either on a research project or a placement with an appropriate institution.

Graduates of the Environment and Climate Change MSc have gone on to continue their studies towards a PhD, or are employed in a wide range of positions, including environmental, energy and engineering consultancies, multinational companies (energy),  local government, environmental bodies, research positions and teaching.

PhD graduates are now working in academic life as lecturers in Geography, Environmental Science, Economic History, Development Studies and Statistics at universities in the UK and overseas. Others are employed in applied fields, working in Europe, Africa and across the world, for example as professional statisticians (one is now Director of Statistics in Zambia, another working in the Health Service in the UK), development professionals (including a member of staff on the WHO malaria programme in East Africa), and scientists at climate and environmental research centres around the world.