Insegnamento a.a. 2019-2020

30387 - CLIMATE CHANGE ECONOMICS

Department of Economics

Course taught in English
Go to class group/s: 31
CLEAM (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/01) - CLEF (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/01) - CLEACC (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/01) - BESS-CLES (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/01) - WBB (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/01) - BIEF (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/01) - BIEM (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/01) - BIG (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/01) - BEMACS (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/01)
Course Director:
VALENTINA BOSETTI

Classes: 31 (II sem.)
Instructors:
Class 31: VALENTINA BOSETTI


Suggested background knowledge

Students are expected to be comfortable with econometrics and microeconomics to feel at ease with this course.

Mission & Content Summary

MISSION

Climate change is by and large an economic problem. It is a global, inter-temporal externality and it represents a major challenge for economists. This course examines the key role of economic activities as a driver of climate change and how economic tools can be used to investigate this problem and to design climate policies. In order to deal with the problem of climate change the students have to rethink some key economic concepts like efficiency, externality, inter-temporal decision making under uncertainty and welfare aggregation, from a new and more applied perspective. The students also familiarize with key tools for climate change and long term energy policy making: integrated assessment models. The general mechanism of these tools are learned through applications like the role of innovation in the energy sector, game theory and the (in)stability of international climate agreements, and how the inclusion of uncertainty affects optimal policies and investment decisions.

CONTENT SUMMARY

  • Introduction to the Climate Change challenge.
  • Integrated Assessment Models.
  • Making Decisions about the Environment (Cost Benefit and Cost Effective Analysis).
  • Who is the social planner? (Inter-temporal and social aggregation issues).
  • Modeling Technological Change and Climate Mitigation technologies.
  • Valuation Methods (Valuing the Market and non-Market Benefits of avoided Cliamte Change).
  • Environmental Policy Making.
  • International Environmental Agreements.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILO)

KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING

At the end of the course student will be able to...
  • Understand the basic dynamics of our Planet 's climate system.
  • Understand the role of economic processes in causing GHGs emissions.
  • Understanding what is a global externality.
  • Discuss critically the role of Cost Benefit Analysis in the context of climate change.
  • Understand what is an Integrated Assessment Model.
  • Understand what are market-based policies for externalities.

APPLYING KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING

At the end of the course student will be able to...
  • Understand the status of international climate negotiations.
  • Work in a climate change office of a big firm.
  • Take everyday's decisions knowing what they imply in terms of GHG emissions.

Teaching methods

  • Guest speaker's talks (in class or in distance)
  • Case studies /Incidents (traditional, online)
  • Group assignments
  • Interactive class activities (role playing, business game, simulation, online forum, instant polls)

DETAILS

  • Gamification and experiments in the class.
  • Videos and newspaper articles follwed by a discussion.
  • Role Playing: Climate Agreement Negotiation.
  • Group Assignment 1: Written Policy Memo and class presentation.
  • Group Assignment 2: Creation of a 2 Minute video (the most voted ones are shown in class).
  • Guest Speakers: Actor coaching on how to speak in public (Preparation for assignment 1).

Assessment methods

  Continuous assessment Partial exams General exam
  • Written individual exam (traditional/online)
     x
  • Group assignment (report, exercise, presentation, project work etc.)
     x
  • Active class participation (virtual, attendance)
     x
  • Peer evaluation
     x

ATTENDING STUDENTS

  1. Voluntary Assignment 1 (Short Memo) 40%.
  2. Voluntary Assignment 2 (Video) 30%.
  3. Final exam (Shorter version) 30%.
  4. Class Active Participation Prize (1 point) to the top 5 Students.
  • What does it mean to be an attending student? 75% presence in class.
  • For the assignments you may work in a team of 2-4 (depending on how many students enroll). You are given the possibility to enroll to a group through Bboard.
  • How to speak in public: a professional actor and public speaking coach (David Calhan) come to class to provide you with an amazing interactive tutorial on how to present in front of a public. 
  • Assignment 1 Memo: you choose a topic (I have to approve). You work on a brief written policy memo and you present it in class during the last days of class. Active participation to other teams’ presentations is compulsory.
    • Detailed information on how to write the memo and how to make the presentation and examples are provided during class and are available on Bboard.
    • Deadline: Submission of memo by the last day of class (no exceptions). Presentations calendar are posted later in the year, but it is one of the last days of class.
  • Assignment 2 Video: you choose a topic (I have to approve). You can decide to be on the video or, instead, to use any other technique (animation, voice-over ppt, etc.).
    • You produce a one/two minutes video explaining a key concept that we have covered during the course. You may decide on the style of the video freely. You don’t need any special equipment – you can use your cell phone for this if you wish. You are graded on:
      • Effectiveness of your presentation.
      • Correctness and completeness of your presentation.
      • The overall pedagogic effectiveness of your video.
      • Complexity of the concept you decided to present. 
    • You constructively comment and vote videos done by other teams using Board. There is a prize assigned to the best video.
    • Detailed information and examples on video are provided during class.
    • Deadline: Submission of video, at the latest, 10 days before the last day of class.
  • The Final Exam is written and compulsory. It is required to have a minimum of 18/30 in the final written exam to pass. All above requirements expire within the Academic year.  If you do the voluntary assignments, you have to stick to that option throughout.

NOT ATTENDING STUDENTS

  • Final exam (Long Version) 100%
  • The Final Exam is written.

Teaching materials


ATTENDING AND NOT ATTENDING STUDENTS

Main Book on Bboard: 

  • C. KOLSTAD, Intermediate Environmental Economics: International Edition, OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, 2011, 2nd edition, number 9780199732654.

The Bboard online syllabus contains all the hyperlinks to the material below:

  • W. NORDHAUS, Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong, The New York Review of Books from the March 22, 2012 issue.
  • R.A. MULLER, The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic, The New York Times, Published: July 28, 2012.
  • http://www.nationalgeographic.com/climate-change/special-issue/
  • http://www.rollingstone.com/topic/climate-change
  • J. HANSEN, L. NAZARENKO, R. RUEDY, et al., Earth's Energy Imbalance: Confirmation and Implications, 2005, Science  308, 14.
  • IPCC 5th Assessment Report. Technical Summary, Working Group 1 (If the link does not work go to http://www.climatechange2013.org/ and click on the summary for policy makers) http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/september/global-warming-hiatus-091715.html.
  • IPCC 5th Assessment Report. Summary for Policy Maker, Working Group 3 (If the link does not work go to http://mitigation2014.org/ and click on the summary for policy makers) http://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/carboncalculator.
  • IEA, Energy, Climate Change and the Environment.
  • D. FULLERTON, R. STAVINS, How Economists See the Environment, Nature, 395:6701, 1998.
  • G. HARDIN, The Tragedy of the Commons, Science, 162:1243-48, 1968.
  • S.J. DUBNER, S.D. LEVITT, Freakonomics: Not-So-Free Ride, The New York Times Published: April 20, 2008.
  • KAHNEMAN, et al., Experimental Test of the Endowment effect and the Coase Theorem, The Journal of Political economy, 1990.
  • IPCC 4th AR Climate Change 2007: Working Group III: Mitigation of Climate Change, (Chapters 2.4 and 2.6).
  • NORDHAUS, Economic aspects of global warming in a post- Copenhagen environment, PNAS, 2010.
  • T. SCHELLING, Intergenerational discounting, Energy Policy 23, 395-401, 1995.
  • STEFRI KELMAN, Cost-Benefit Analysis: An Ethical Critique, from AEI Journal on Government and Society Regulation (1981) PP. 33-40.
  • A.P. KIRMAN, Whom or What Does the Representative Individual Represent?, Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 117-36, Spring, 1992.
  • P. KRUGMAN, Building a Green Economy, The New York Times, April 7, 2010.
  • R.S.J. TOL, The Damage Costs of Climate Change Toward More Comprehensive Calculations, Environmental and Resource Economics 5, 353-374, 1995.
  • Discussion of Burke, Hsiang, and Miguel, 2015. 
  • N. STERN, The economics of climate change – The Stern Review, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007.
  • L. CLARKE, et al., International climate policy architectures: Overview of the EMF 22 International Scenarios, Energy Economics, pagg.S64–S81, 2009.
  • S. PACALA, R. SOCOLOW, Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies, Science, 2004. http://cmi.princeton.edu/wedges/.
  • W.D. NORHAUS, Integrated Economic and Climate Modeling, Cowles Foundation Discussion Paper No. 1839, December 9, 2011.
  • P. KRUGMAN, Building a Green Economy, The New York Times, April 7, 2010.
  • J. CHAFFIN, Emissions trading: Cheap and dirty, Financial Times, http://www.robertstavinsblog.org/
  • S. BARRETT, Self-Enforcing International Environmental Agreements, Oxford Economic Papers, Vol. 46, pp. 878-894, 1994,  https://www.climateinteractive.org/programs/world-climate/.
Last change 31/05/2019 07:52