This course provides a compendium of the economists’ views on energy and climate change. The system will apply economic principles to analyze energy and climate change problems. Besides using microeconomics concepts in the study of climate policies as in a standard environmental economics course, the course will introduce the essential toolkit of energy and climate modeling and the main issues to estimate climate change impacts on socioeconomic variables. Finally, the international dimension of climate change policies will be analyzed. Active students’ participation is required through group presentations and collective discussions around the primary debates on energy and climate policies.

At the end of the course, students will get a comprehensive knowledge of the leading energy and climate change issues and their policy solutions; will be familiar with the pros and cons of different policy instruments; will be up to date with the international climate change negotiation process, political drivers of climate policies and their acceptability. This knowledge will enable students to interpret critically the results of the rapidly expanding body of economic literature assessing the effect of climate change impacts and policies, will develop students’ capacity to think in a multi-disciplinary way connecting political, scientific, and economic processes on climate change issues; should contribute to form the students' skills to conduct independent research in these areas.

The course is aimed at providing knowledge of the global energy system and the implications of the course policies on climate policies.

My slides No one book, several sources in the reading folder. Any microeconomics manual for the basic concepts Any book on environmental and resource economics There are no ideal books, some suggestions are: Pearce, Tuner and Bateman, Environmental Economics (old) Baumol and Oates, The Theory of Environmental Policy (old but excellent) Perman et al., Natural Resource and Environmental Economics During the lectures, selected articles will be indicated.

Frontal lessons Active participation is highly recommended.

The exam includes a final written exam and intermediate tests aimed at understanding whether the part of the program covered up to that point has been understood and assimilated

The grading is based on: an written exam (50% of grade); the drafting of an essay to be prepared as a group work and to be presented as a seminar during the lectures (40% of grade). Active partecipation (10%) The topics for the essay will be assigned by the teacher. Groups will be composed by 3 to 4 students. In-class presence is essential during the presentation by the entire group.