GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE: SCIENCE AND POLITICS

This course provides students a critical review of the climate change discussion. The goal is to increase understanding from an interdisciplinary perspective and to join the dialogues from the physical and social sciences outlook. In this course, based on a wide range of resources, students understand the empirical and normative challenges around the debate of global warming and why political actors have found it so difficult to find an effective response to climate change. After getting an overview of the science on global warming in the first part of the course, the second part focuses on the growing empirical policy science. Topics covered include: the dynamics of public opinion; international cooperation; the economic disagreements and agreements over climate interventions; risks and options of addressing climate change, or not addressing climate change. The course ends with reviews of concrete policy and technical options. The course presents local, regional, national, and international initiatives combining adaptation and mitigation of climate change through reforestation, sustainable development, technological solutions, renewable energies, low carbon transportation, and carbon neutral initiatives.