| | Global climate change and our societal response are one of the most urgent but contentious debates of our time. The Biden Administration and progressive members of Congress call for zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, while former President Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement and sought to roll back every discoverable climate milestone of the Obama-era.
In a single semester, this course will cover the most salient aspects of the crisis, from the science of climate change, to national and international scientific assessment, to the continuing campaign of climate denial. It will consider the benefits of mitigating versus adapting to climate change, and why adaptation is so crucial to developing countries. The course will assess the three major international efforts taken to date, including the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and the 2015 Paris Agreement. In particular, it will weigh the competing goals of effectiveness versus broad national participation. It will highlight the role of the major financing mechanisms, including Global Environment Facility, the Green Climate Fund, as well as emissions trading schemes and offset mechanisms, and explain why finance has been so central to international negotiations. The course will weigh China’s role and the importance of the U.S.-China relationship in providing global leadership. Finally, the course will delve into the issues of ethics and environmental justice and look at the roles of Congress, the States, cities and the private sector.
The course is taught by a former senior U.S. State Department negotiator who played a pivotal role in negotiating the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, and who co-chaired the final year of negotiations among 197 parties leading to the Paris Agreement in December 2015.
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LPPP 5559