3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

Scientists tell us that continued reliance on fossil fuels to drive our economies causes global warming, which in turn poses an existential threat to humanity as we know it. But the major tools of societies to steer a clean energy transition—climate and energy policies—often fail, lack ambition, and vary widely from country to country. This is puzzling: Why is it so difficult to pass meaningful policies even though the stakes are so high? How to explain the varying responses to the same problem? In this course, students study the struggle over energy and climate policies through case studies of large industrialized countries. Besides other things, we will ask why the US failed to install any kind of meaningful climate policy, if and how the problems of the EU’s carbon market can be solved, why China cancelled over 100 coal-fired power plants in 2017, and why cloudy Germany became a solar energy powerhouse.