PPGA 584 Policy Responses to Global Climate Change

Description

This course is restricted to graduate students. 

Crosslisted as RES 520 Climate Change: Science, Technology and Sustainable Development

This course will introduce climate change, its drivers, impacts, and policies to address these. Climate change will be contextualized within global change, and the interplay of socio-economic development and technical change with climate policies. This course is about understanding the complexity of these interactions and identifying policy responses that are more likely to succeed. Changes in global climate will have a range of impacts across different geographies, ecosystems, and societies. Some will benefit while others will face devastation. The challenge lies in finding solutions that address this diversity of outcomes without thwarting the rights of different peoples to “develop”.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

1. Explain basic scientific and economic concepts related to climate policy;
2. Critically read papers and synthesize key contributions and remaining questions;
3. Analyze and describe key policy debates and their technical, economic, political, social, and/or ethical underpinnings;
4. Critically evaluate the technical, economic, and socio-political opportunities and challenges associated with implementing different climate solutions.