ESP 165: Climate Policy Mike Springborn Department of Environmental Science & Policy Image:

Climate policy questions and lenses How aggressively and in what way should society take action to reduce damages from climate change? –balance between expected impacts/costs and policy response options and their costs Mitigation versus adaptation Economics/policy science/ ethics/climate science –game theory, theories on the use of science in policy and analysis of public attitudes. International/national/state

courses/esp165/index.html Can find via my website (Google “Springborn”) or via the course description Smartsite. Class Website Spring 2014

Course readings Articles are hyper-linked –You may need to be logged into Smartsite or be on the UC Davis network access to retrieve some articles 2014

Assignments and grading Your final grade will be based on: –Active and informed participation in class 15% –Short answer and policy memo writing assignments25% –In-class presentation (or alternative)10% –Midterm exam25% –Final exam25%

Class participation Active participation in class –asking questions, –answering questions –offering commentary Informed participation –Understanding of both lecture materials and assigned readings. –Attendance will be recorded. One absence allowed with no effect on participation grade. Subsequent absences: each will result in a half-grade reduction in your participation grade. –Quizzes “Simple” quizzes at the beginning of class will assess preparation for participating. Will occur randomly. First quiz will happen with certainty next Thursday.

In-class presentation Preparation and delivery to the class of a 20 minute presentation on a particular climate policy topic –e.g. “Ethical critiques of discounting future benefits of greenhouse gas mitigation” –you will also moderate the in-class discussion to follow the presentation Or….

The problem in a nutshell [Trenberth 2009]

Higher GHG concentrations map to uncertain but substantial changes in temperature [Pizer 2007]

The paleoclimatic record suggests anticipated GHG concentrations are quite unusual [Dieter et al. 2008]

Predicted outcomes are uncertain: the recent mismatch between increasing GHG concentrations and flat temperature is a puzzle “The world added roughly 100 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and That is about a quarter of all the CO ₂ put there by humanity since 1750.” James Hansen (NASA): “the five-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade” [The Economist, 2013]

Temperature is relative to the average. (USGCRP 2013, p. 20) A2 scenario: high population growth, low economic growth, slower technology improvements and diffusion, and other factors that contribute to high emissions and lower adaptive capacity B1 scenario: lower population growth, higher economic development, a shift to low-emitting efficient energy technologies that are diffused rapidly around the world through free trade, and other conditions that reduce the rate and magnitude of changes in climate averages and extremes as well as increased capacity for adaptation. Projected US temperature changes are substantial even for optimistic emissions scenarios From… U.S. Global Change Research Program: National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee Draft Climate Assessment Report (2013).

Undesirable impacts are expected as temperature increases across a range of settings [IPPC 2007]