Spring 2020 - 58340 - PA 388K - Advanced Topics in Public Policy

Climate Policy

Anthropogenic climate change potentially poses the greatest threat to human life and natural systems of all policy problems. This course explores the dimensions of potential policy solutions to this threat through the lens of technical, economic and political feasibility. Our approach will explore the current understanding of climate change impacts, the design of mitigation and adaptation policies, and the range of challenges to implementation of these policies. Because addressing climate change effectively means reallocating the scarce resources of society in a way to limit the cost to future generations, economic tools will prove invaluable in our study of these issues. The first part of the course seeks to link a series of tools from environmental and natural resource economics to climate change impacts and policies. The second half of the course explores political and distributional challenges facing policymakers hoping to address this important issue. The larger goal of this course is to help students become informed and critically-minded practitioners of climate policy.