Climate Change Economics and Policy

The goal of the course is to provide an introduction to climate change economics and policies. The course is divided into three parts. First, we will examine the scientific evidence on climate change and climate change impacts on socio-economic outcomes. Second, we introduce the basic principle of economic theory to study the effectiveness of different climate policies on various outcomes, including GHG emissions and green innovation. In the third part, we will analyze the determinants of climate change policies, both at the national and international level. The course require an active students' participation through in-class games on the classex.de platform and students' presentations.

At the end of the course students will be acquainted with the concept of climate change as an "economic" and development issue. They will be familiar with the challenges to implementation, cost-benefit-effectiveness evaluation, pros and cons of different strategies against climate change. They will be also updated on the exit of major international climate change agreements.
Applying this knowledge, students will be able to: autonomously judge the appropriateness of mitigation and adaptation policies proposed domestically and internationally, with respect to the achievement of temperature increase stabilization targets; critically follow the evolution of UN climate change negotiation process; orient themselves and scrutiny the vast social economic literature on climate change periodically surveyed by the IPCC.