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Understanding Climate Change: Science, Economics, and Policy Study Guide

This guide provides a comprehensive overview of climate change, covering its scientific underpinnings, the human activities driving it, and the complex socio-economic and policy challenges involved. It delves into greenhouse gas mechanics, emission sources, economic externalities, and strategies for mitigation and adaptation, including principles of climate justice and international cooperation.

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Weighing Up Present and Future Actions

Weighing Present and Future Actions

  • Discounting
  • The Ramsey Equation
  • Pure rate of time preference
  • Discount rates
  • Elasticity of marginal utility of consumption
  • Projected consumption growth
  • Compounding
  • Future value
  • Present value
  • Social discount rate
  • Inter-temporal resource allocation
  • Market interest rate

The Science and Mechanics of Climate Change

The Science of Climate Change

An examination of global warming mechanics, greenhouse gas sources, and the socio-economic challenges of mitigation and adaptation.

  • Global warming mechanics
  • Greenhouse gas sources
  • Climate change mitigation
  • Climate change adaptation
  • Climate justice
  • Common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities
  • Anthropogenic warming
  • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
  • Carbon dioxide
  • Nitrous oxide
  • Risk-seeking preferences
  • Risk-averse preferences
  • Risk-neutral preference
  • Externalities

Determinants of Earth's Climate Systems

Determinants of earth's climate involve heat exchange between the sun and earth, greenhouse gases, and anthropogenic influences on radiation balance.

  • Climatic balance
  • Greenhouse gases (GHGs)
  • Albedo effect
  • Anthropogenic influences
  • Radiative forcings
  • CO2e (Carbon dioxide equivalent)
  • Solar radiation
  • Infrared energy
  • IPCC

Climate Change Governance and Emissions

An overview of COP meetings, the role of the IPCC, greenhouse gas emissions, and the impacts of global warming.

  • COP Meetings
  • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
  • Representative concentration pathways (RCPs)
  • Radiative forcing
  • Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
  • Carbon dioxide
  • Arctic and Antarctic ice melting
  • Nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions
  • Anthropogenic GHG emission sectors
  • Agriculture, forestry, land use
  • Global warming temperature projections

Global GHG Emissions and Climate Change Impacts

This content examines global GHG emissions, potential climate change impacts, human vulnerability, and ecosystem decline.

  • GHG emissions
  • Climate change impacts
  • Sea level rise
  • Ocean acidification
  • Human vulnerability
  • Adaptation capacity
  • Ecosystem decline
  • Forest transition model
  • Thermal expansion

Policy Dimensions and Trade and Climate Change

Policy Dimensions for Addressing Climate Change

Policy options and approaches for internalizing the climate change externality through various instruments and objectives.

  • Policy options for addressing climate change
  • Internalizing the climate change externality
  • Carbon price
  • Quantity restrictions
  • Allocation of property rights
  • GHG emissions pricing
  • Efficiency, equity, and public finance
  • Marginal social cost of carbon
  • Marginal cost of abatement
  • Taxes on carbon
  • Permits to emit carbon
  • Cap-and-trade
  • Subsidies for GHG mitigation
  • Regulation
  • Hybrid approaches
  • Trade and climate change
  • Carbon markets
  • Border tax adjustments

Comparing Carbon Taxes and Permits

An analysis of taxes versus permits regarding revenue, volatility, governance, and cap-and-trade mechanisms.

  • Taxes versus permits
  • Cap-and-trade advantages and disadvantages
  • Revenue recycling
  • Price volatility
  • Market liquidity and speculation
  • Permit allocation
  • Governance and rent-seeking
  • Distributional justice
  • Quantitative steer
  • Feedback effects

Trade Policy and Climate Change Cooperation

An analysis of the relationship between trade policy, economic activity, and greenhouse gas emissions including the effects of trade liberalization on climate.

  • Environmental externality
  • Gains from trade
  • Absolute and comparative advantage
  • Economies of scale
  • Imperfect competition
  • Heterogeneous trade theory
  • Scale effect
  • Composition effect
  • Technique effect
  • Technology diffusion
  • Kuznets inverted U-shaped curve
  • Income inequality and economic development
  • Product cycle carbon footprint analysis
  • Climate justice
  • Carbon leakage
  • WTO rules and climate change
  • Environmental goods and services
  • Doha Round negotiations
  • GATS negotiations

Economics and Policy of Subsidies

An analysis of subsidy bases, political economy, and the distinction between good and bad subsidies within the context of WTO rules and R&D investment.

  • Subsidy bases
  • Capital
  • Feed-in tariffs
  • Tax rebates/credits
  • Tax exemptions
  • Preferential interest rates
  • Abatement and mitigation subsidies
  • Fossil fuel subsidies
  • Agriculture subsidies
  • Transport subsidies
  • Renewable energy subsidies
  • WTO rules
  • Illegal and actionable subsidies
  • Export subsidies
  • Domestic content rules
  • Countervailing duties
  • R&D subsidies
  • Industrial policy
  • Technical Barriers to Trade

Border Tax Adjustments and Standards

Analysis of standards, carbon leakage, and the application of border tax adjustments regarding environmental and energy taxes.

  • Standards
  • Harmonization
  • Conformity assessment
  • Border Tax Adjustments
  • Carbon leakage
  • Competitiveness
  • Indirect taxes
  • Direct taxes
  • Article II.2(a)
  • Article III.2
  • Article XX
  • Export BTAs

Carbon Markets and EU ETS

An overview of carbon markets, their origins, and the features, evolution, and criticisms of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.

  • Carbon markets
  • Carbon tax
  • Emissions trading
  • Kyoto Protocol
  • Paris Agreement
  • EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS)
  • Cap-and-trade mechanism
  • Allowances (EUAs)
  • Market Stability Reserve (MSR)
  • Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM)
  • Fit for 100 package
  • Fit for 55-zero emissions
  • Carbon leakage

EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism Overview

The EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) aims to reduce global CO2 emissions and prevent carbon leakage by neutralizing competitive advantages from imports.

  • Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM)
  • Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)
  • Carbon emissions permits
  • Carbon leakage
  • WTO-consistency
  • Carbon pricing and taxation mechanisms
  • Carbon emissions measurement

International Climate Change Agreements and Cooperation

International Climate Change Agreements Overview

An overview of international cooperation agreements, the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol, and Committee of the Parties meetings.

  • UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
  • Kyoto Protocol
  • Committee of the Parties Meetings
  • GHG inventories
  • Annex I countries
  • Shared but differentiated responsibilities
  • Joint Implementation
  • Clean Development Mechanism
  • Certified emission Reduction units
  • International Emissions Trading
  • Copenhagen Accord

Climate Change and Business Evolution

Climate Change and Business Evolution

The evolution of business attitudes towards climate change policies, ESG investing, and the impact of international climate change agreements.

  • Business attitudes towards climate change policies
  • World Business Council for Sustainable Development
  • Shareholder activism
  • ESG investing
  • UN PRI Signatory and AUM Growth
  • Public opinion trends
  • US withdrawals from international climate activities
  • Paris Agreement
  • Climate finance
  • Clean-technology investment

Climate Change and Business Management Strategies

Approaches to environment-related management include establishing business plans, strategic plans, and Environment Management Systems to manage significant impacts and identify risks and opportunities.

  • Business strategies
  • Environment-related management
  • Environment Management System
  • Climate change in company strategy
  • Monitoring, review and verification
  • Impact analysis for climate change and policy
  • Efficient abatement cost curve

Introduction to Integrated Assessment Models

Integrated Assessment Models and Climate Change

Integrated Assessment Models connect climate science with economics, energy systems, land use, and policy analysis to study emissions, mitigation strategies, and climate damages.

  • Integration Assessment Models
  • Climate science
  • Economics
  • Energy systems
  • Land use
  • Policy analysis
  • Mitigation strategies
  • Carbon cycle
  • GHG concentrations
  • Emissions growth
  • Socioeconomic impacts
  • Uncertainty management
  • Technological change

Article XX Exceptions and WTO Provisions

WTO Article XX and Public Policy Exceptions

Article XX provides an exhaustive list of public policy exceptions that can override GATT/WTO provisions regarding climate change, health, and natural resources.

  • Article XX exceptions
  • Two-tier test
  • National security provisions
  • Intellectual property rights
  • Technology transfer
  • Countervailing and antidumping duties
  • Natural resource conservation

Evolution of International Climate Change Agreements

International Climate Change Agreements and COPs

An overview of international climate change cooperation through various COP meetings, including the Copenhagen Accord, Cancun, Durban, Doha, Warsaw, Lima, Paris, Marrakesh, and Bonn.

  • Copenhagen Accord
  • Common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities
  • Measurement, reporting and verification (MRV)
  • Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+)
  • Green Climate Fund
  • Cancun Adaptation Framework
  • Nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs)
  • Quantified economy-wide emission limitations or reductions (QELROs)
  • Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs)
  • Loss and damage
  • Paris Agreement
  • Net carbon neutrality
  • Talanoa Dialogue
  • Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture

Strategies for Abatement and Adaptation

Climate Change Abatement and Adaptation Strategies

Analysis of emission abatement, adaptation, and the economic considerations for selecting mitigation paths to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations.

  • Renewable power and storage technologies
  • Abatement/mitigation vs adaptation
  • Lock-in and delayed abatement
  • Irreversible impacts of warming
  • Marginal benefit of expenditure
  • Residual costs of climate damage
  • Autonomous versus policy-driven adaptation
  • Learning-by-doing externality
  • Implicit price of carbon

Sources and Distribution of Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Sources and Impacts of Greenhouse Gases

This content examines greenhouse gas emissions and their impacts.

  • Greenhouse gases
  • Air pollution
  • Fossil fuels
  • Deforestation
  • Nitrous oxide
  • HCFCs
  • CO2e emissions
  • Per capita emissions
  • Energy production
  • Agriculture, forestry & land use

Evolution of COP Summits and International Climate Agreements

International Climate Agreements and COP Summits

An overview of international agreements, COP summits, and the challenges of rational collective action regarding climate finance, adaptation, and fossil fuel phase-out.

  • COP summits
  • Paris Agreement
  • Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)
  • Climate finance
  • Loss and damage fund
  • Adaptation and mitigation
  • Carbon markets
  • Fossil fuel phase-out
  • Climate-trade dialogue
  • Rational collective action
  • Free-riding
  • Top-down and bottom-up approaches

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