Seminar: Economics of Global Environmental Change (GCE:C4a) (74041)

SS 2024
2024-04-25 (12:00-16:00), Kick-off meeting - online; 2024-06-27-2024-06-29 (several days), Seminar - room tbc

Johannes Förster

Seminar block course, 2 ECTS

Preliminary Meeting/Kick-off: 25 April 2024 

Seminar block course: 27 to 29 june 2024

Learning Objective (Module C4): The aim of the module is to lead students into the economic and political dimensions of global change. Global environmental change confronts societies with problems (e.g. loss of biodiversity, desertification, climate change or soil erosion) that can create considerable costs for society at large. Political solutions are needed to deal with conflicting interests. Environmental governance encompasses a variety of different approaches of social regulation from international treaties across borders to informal networks or market-based competition.

Course Content: The seminar “Economics of Global Environmental Change” addresses important studies on the topic with a focus on climate change (e.g. the Stern Review), biodiversity loss (e.g. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity TEEB), or land degradation (e.g. The Economics of Land Degradation ELD). The focus is on 1) assessing the multiple values of ecosystem services (in particular their economic dimension) for informing decision making and 2) the relevance of such information for the design of environmental policies and economic instruments for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.