Risks and Opportunities of Climate Change

Climate change has environmental, social, political, and economic repercussions. In addition, the efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the various impacts of climate change affect business operations globally. For some companies, climate change may imply severe financial risks. Others may have the opportunity to benefit from climate policy measures or from the need to adapt or to mitigate climate change. So are you looking for a better understanding of climate change and want to work towards solutions?

This course aims to provide a better understanding of climate change in an interdisciplinary approach. First, an invited natural scientist (Prof. Dr. Ricarda Winkelmann) will give an introduction to the basic physics of climate change, which involves explanations of the greenhouse gas effect, feedback effects and clarifications of the question whether climate change is caused by human activities. She will also give an overview of the various future impacts of climate change we currently know about. Then, the course will deal with the economics of climate change and in particular with climate policy measures that directly affect business operations. The third part of the course demonstrates selected business solutions. Experts will give talks about

• Stimulating energy efficiency financing in the EU through capacity building in the banking sector (Dr. Svenja Hector, adelphi)
• TCFD reporting and Carbon Delta's Solutions (David Lunsford, CEO of Carbon Delta)
• Introduction into CO2-Accounting (Frederik Pöschel und Christopher Buers, ecocockpit, Effizienz Agentur NRW)
• E-Mobility (Dr. Michael Riesener, CEO of e.GO Digital GmbH)

The students will write a short paper on an allocated topic that is related with climate economics, the talks given by the experts or another business solution. In the last lecture, the students will give a short presentation of their results.

• Knowing and understanding basic concepts and mechanisms of climate change, global warming and climate damages
• Good understanding of climate policy instruments in practice and the economics of climate change
• Good understanding of the business concepts introduced in the expert talks
• Learning to analyze business concepts from the climate change perspective