IMPACTS, ADAPTATION AND MITIGATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE

This course focuses on impacts of climate change on environmental and socio-economic systems, and on the policies to address the causes and consequences of climate change. Impacts on agriculture and biodiversity, sea level rise and coastal zones, precipitations and extreme events will be presented and discussed. The course will then examine adaptation and mitigation policies, the required investments, the economic costs of these policies, their impact on economic growth and the optimal balance between mitigation and adaptation. Finally, the course will analyse international negotiations on climate change control and will present some proposals, both at the micro and macro level, to deal with one of the most important threats to the future development of our socio-economic and environmental systems.

1. Knowledge and understanding:
1.1 Understand the role of economics in addressing climate change
1.2. Compare different climate policy instruments
1.3 Understand the dynamics of international negotiations on climate change

2. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding:
2.1. Assess impacts of climate change
2.2. Apply economic instruments to mitigate climate change
2.3. Identify solutions to reduce obstacles towards international climate agreements

3. Judgment skills:
3.1. Assess pros and cons of different climate policy instruments
3.2. Understand the future of economic and energy systems taking climate and technological change into account
3.3. Evaluate the success probability of international negotiations on climate change

Basic elements of economics, mathematics and statistics. Students should also be familiar with the most important environmental problems and should follow the debate on the measures and policies to address climate change, by reading the most recent IPCC reports before lectures start.

1. Causes of climate change. Recent developments and future scenarios
2. The social and economic drivers of climate change
3. Main impacts of climate change
4. Impacts of climate change: focus on the Artic
5. Adaptation to climate change
6. Mitigation policies: domestic and International instruments to deal with climate change
7. Short term priorities: energy efficiency, renewables, storage
8. Economic instruments to reduce GHGs. Focus on the EU ETS
9. Mitigation costs. Implications for competitiveness
10. The optimal balance between mitigation and adaptation
11. International negotiations on climate change (IPCC, COPs…)
12. Focus on Paris COP 21 and its implications
13. Climate finance
14. Technological innovation
15. Best practices to deal with climate change mitigation and adaptation

Blogs
- http://climateobserver.org/
- http://www.carlocarraro.org/

Books:
- Carlo Carraro and Alessandra Mazzai, Il clima che cambia , Il Mulino, 2015
- Anthony Giddens, La politica del cambiamento climatico, Il Saggiatore, 2015
- Scott Barrett, Carlo Carraro, Jim De Melo, Towards a Workable and Effective Climate Regine, CEPR Press 2015, free downloadable at www.cepr.org (anche in francese per la casa editrice Economica).
- Nicholas Stern, Why Are We Waiting? The Logic, Urgency and Promise of Tackling Climate Change, MIT Press, 2014
- Gernot Wagner and Martin L. Weitzman, Climate Shock: The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet , Princeton University Press, 2014
- IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, free downloadable at www.ipcc.ch
- William D. Nordhaus, The Climate Casino: Risk, Uncertainty, and Economics for a Warming World, Yale University Press

Students may pass the exam by writing a few essays during the lecture period. Students will be asked to write 4 or 5 essays on different topics, linked to what discussed and taught in lectures or as a way to apply and deepen the contents of the lectures.

Lectures and workgroups. Students will be asked to prepare short essays that will be discussed in class. Much of the learning process should take place before and during the course, to make lectures more participated and interesting, and to give students the capacity to use and apply the acquired knowledge.

Italian

written and oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Climate change and energy" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development