All policy is climate change policy. The challenges and solutions for climate change span across society and the economy, which means that addressing the climate crisis requires transformative change to both eliminate greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. Global greenhouse gas emissions need to reduce rapidly in the next ten years and reach net zero around mid-century in order to have a chance of avoiding dangerous climate change. At the same time, climate change is exacerbating existing societal vulnerabilities and is having deep impacts across natural and social systems. This course focuses on the governance of the transformation necessary to address this crisis and covers theories behind and practical approaches to the multilevel governance of climate change. The course covers a range of public policy areas related to climate change mitigation and adaptation, including energy supply, energy use and demand, carbon markets and economic tools, food and agriculture, and transportation. In this course, students will learn about dealing with complexity in climate policy-making and the range of actors involved in climate change policy spanning multiple levels of government as well as non-state actors. The primary focus is on policy-making in Canada, but the course also incorporates international policy and global North case studies.
Note for CCIA students: In order to fulfill the program requirements, two (2) of the following three (3) courses must be taken: EES1131H Applied Climatology, EES1134H Climate Change Policy, EES1136H Climate Change Adaptation