Climate and energy transition policy - Einzelansicht

Climate and energy transition policy

Overview and setting of the course

Climate change is one of the big challenges of our time, touching all aspects of the environment and of society. There is broad recognition that governments must do something about it: making sure that emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) stop within the next 30 to 40 years. The implication of the Paris Agreement and its 1.5 and 2 degrees targets is the complete elimination of GHG emissions from the energy system.

This is a very complicated problem. Fundamentally this is because it means doing something that humanity has never really tried before at a planetary scale: deliberately altering the ways we produce, convert, and consume energy. Modern society grew up on fossil fuels, and the huge benefits they offered in terms of energy that was inexpensive, easy and safe to transport, store and consume. How to manage an 8 or 10 billion people, non-fossil energy world, at something like today’s living standards, is a question for which there is no easy answer.

From a technical perspective, there are many answers, typically relying on a bouquet of solutions, from wind power to nuclear power, from solar heat to passive housing insulating away energy demand. The technical side of decarbonisation is difficult, but possible.

The real nut to crack, however, is about the strategies and governance for how to achieve such a complete transformation: the policy side of climate and energy. Arguably a government could simply pass a law that forbids people from using fossil fuels. But politically this is simply unrealistic, at least while so many people depend on fossil fuels in their daily lives. And even worse, it is not certain that it would work, because the technological alternatives may not be available and implementable over night. What is to be done? For this, one needs to turn to various ideas about how government can and should do, whether and how it should influence and steer society. On the one hand are ideas suggesting that government should play a very limited role relative to private actors and should step in only to correct ”market failures”, with ”market-based” interventions designed specifically around that failure. On the other hand are ideas suggesting that government (meaning all of us, working together through a democratic process) needs to guide the transition more directly, including through own investments or radical reforms, designed to support the solutions determined to be the ones we want. And on the third hand, if such a hand exists, are ideas posing that the problem is our own consumption patterns and that these, and economic growth in general, are entirely incompatible with climate protection: only consuming radically less energy will help. Such fundamental issues come to the fore in climate and energy policy discussions and debates. This course is about all that.

Learning goals

The goal is to give students the ability to evaluate energy and climate policy arguments made by politicians, experts, and academics with a critical eye, informed by a knowledge of history, an understanding of the theoretical underpinnings and the empirically observed effects of different strategies. A student successfully finishing the course should be able to understand and deconstruct the energy and climate policy debate that is currently raging in Germany, Europe and internationally, and create own solutions. Thereby, she or he will be able to step into a research institute, an NGO or government agency involved in energy policy, policy analysis or political advocacy, and immediately be able to make an informed and creative contribution.

Course outline

The course will meet once per week, with a reading before each class. Typically this will be an article, book chapter or report on a topic related to the topic of the class, making the reading essential for the class. We will read two entire books, which will form the foundation for the seminar series, and each of the books will be the basis for essays to be written and handed in during the semester. Each class will take place in a discussion format, often structured around an input from the lecturer (about 45 minutes), including discussion about the important or critical aspects, and an exercise (about 45 minutes) to be carried out in varying groups in class.

Course requirements and grading

Students are expected to attend all classes, actively participate in all classes and prepare by reading all readings, to allow for informed discussions and creative work in class.

All students, regardless of whether they opt for a graded or a pass/fail Schein (Teilnahme), will in addition write and submit two short essays (max. 1000 words), discussing the policy implications of two books (Nordhaus: Climate Casino; Patt: Transforming Energy). These essays will be graded, and a pass grade on both is required for a pass grade for the course. The essays will be the preparation for two classes in which we will be critically examining and discussing the hypotheses put forth in these books. It is highly recommended to write the essays in English, to ensure consistency with the class and prepare for the discussion classes, but German will be acceptable.

Students who opt for the graded Schein will additionally write a semester thesis (15-20 pages, incl. literature), to be handed in before the end of the semester (end of March 2020). There will be a list of recommended topics to choose from, but students are free to either adapt the suggested questions or to propose questions of their own. If they go for the latter option, a 1-page proposal is required, to ensure consistency with the course and manageability. The semester thesis must be written in English.

Please inform the lecturer within the required period which option you opt for.

Course outline (may be subject to updates)

Readings

All required readings will be supplied on Moodle as pdfs so as to be available for all students.

Books (in parallel to the Market failure (Nordhaus) and Transition (Patt) seminars, in time for the essays).

Required (as input for the essays):

-          William Nordhaus (2013): The Climate Casino. Risk, uncertainty, and economics of a warming world, Yale University Press, New Haven.

-          Anthony Patt (2015): Transforming Energy. Solving climate change with technology policy, Cambridge University Press, New York.

Recommended (selected chapters are mandatory for classes):

-          John Dryzek (2013): The politics of the Earth, OUP Oxford, Oxford.

Articles, reports, etc. (to be read in advance of the respective seminar)

To be updated before the semester starts.

The list of readings will be distributed at the first class. The course will be based on two books, which students will read and we will discuss in depth in class, as well as (generally) one reading item to be read before each class. All readings will be available as pdfs on Moodle.

Required readings in preparation for each seminar:

To be updated before the semester starts.

Required books (as input for the discussion classes and essays):

-          William Nordhaus (2013): The Climate Casino. Risk, uncertainty, and economics of a warming world, Yale University Press, New Haven.

-          Anthony Patt (2015): Transforming Energy. Solving climate change with technology policy, Cambridge University Press, New York.

This seminar is suited for social science students interested in the energy and climate policy field.