Postgraduate Course: Carbon Economics (online) (PGGE11219)
Course Outline
| School | School of Geosciences |
College | College of Science and Engineering |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
| Course type | Online Distance Learning |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course translates the highly popular and successful existing course 'Carbon Economics' for online provision. It covers the economics of climate change using the delivery approach and format already used for the successful online course 'Climate Change Impacts & Adaptation' as part of the Global Challenges MSc. |
| Course description |
This course examines the key issues of climate economics, and the tools that economists use to enhance understanding of these issues. It starts with an introductory overview of markets, considering how a well - functioning market mechanism can allocate resources efficiently. It then turns to a consideration of market failures, viewing an thropogenic climate change as a global externality, and the pros and cons of various policy instruments (e.g. carbon taxation and cap & trade) aimed at addressing this market failure and mitigating climate change. Attention then turns to the global dimension, exploring how game theoretic analysis can help to give insights into the difficulties of reaching effective global agreement on climate change mitigation. The course then explores the time dimension considering, inter alia, time discounting and the controversies surrounding the appropriate discount rate to use in the context of climate change, and the widely, but often loosely, used concept of sustainability. The course concludes by considering how irreversibility and uncertainty affect decisions about the timing and nature of investment in climate change mitigation.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
Students MUST have passed:
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2017/18, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Online Activities 40,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
156 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Short policy brief week 5-20%
Position paper week 9 -30%
Technical report week 13-50% |
| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Distinguish between and critically evaluate the main economic models and theories relevant to carbon management.
- Justify choice of particular values of key variables and methodological approach to performing analyses of climate change mitigation.
- Debate the pros and cons of instruments such as taxes and tradable permits relevant to reducing carbon.
- Engage in meaningful discussion of the difficulty in reaching effective international environmental agreements from an economics perspective.
- Synthesise the key economic issues of carbon management and communicate with non-economist stakeholders.
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Learning Resources
Stern, N. (2006). Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change. Executive Summary. Available at: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/Executive_Summary.pdf
IPCC (2007). Chapter 2: Framing Issues. In: Climate Change 2007: Mitigation. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Available at: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg3/ar4-wg3-chapter2.pdf
Helm, D. (2008). Climate-change policy: Why has so little been achieved? Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 24(2), 211-238. doi:10.1093/oxrep/grn01. Available at: http://www.dieterhelm.co.uk/sites/default/files/Why_so_little_08.pdf
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
The course deepens and develops the numerical skills, analytical skills and skills of synthesis and presentation. |
| Keywords | Carbon Economics,Cap & Trade,Carbon Tax,Game Theory,Market Failure,Resource Efficiency,Global |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Mr Stephen Porter
Tel: (0131 6)51 4545
Email: |
Course secretary | Mrs Karolina Galera
Tel: (0131 6)50 2572
Email: |
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