Credit

3.00   (L-T-P:   3-0-0)

Department / Center / School / Unit

Policy

Course Objectives

Anthropogenic climate change is one of the defining global environmental challenges of this century. Policy-making for complex environmental problems (like climate change) requires harmonizing knowledge and action in the scientific, socio-economic and political domains. The objective of this course is to help students explore the complexities of climate change policy-making in a world characterized by scientific, economic and political uncertainties and to understand that science itself is in part determined by social and political context in which it arises.

Course Contents

The course will develop a basic understanding of science of climate change, the associated uncertainties and the processes that link this science with policymaking. The impacts of climate change on socio-economic and natural systems and the link between climate change, and development policies will be discussed. The global distribution of greenhouse gas emissions and possible technological, market and regulatory trajectories to mitigate them will be discussed with the emphasis on how different trajectories lead to questions on geographic, inter-generational and distributional equity. The students would examine economic, political and institutional frameworks for understanding policies and practices designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, vulnerability to climate change and facilitate adaptation in the face of climate threats and explore how policy can produce or reduce vulnerability. The course will draw on theoretical framings and methodological tools from multiple disciplines including atmospheric sciences, economics, environmental policy, psychology and sociology.