Date

Topic/slides

Readings

Assignments

Optional extra resources

*Note: If you prefer PDF over PPTX files you can convert for free without an account here.

*Note: To access certain readings you will need to be either (1) on the campus network or (2) using the library VPN Client with your UCD LoginID.

9/25

1. Introduction
Slides

9/30

2. Evidence and impacts
Slides

IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2021. Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 3−32.

What are: the IPCC, AR6, AR5, and the SPM? Go beyond just spelling out the acronym—explain each of these in a sentence or two.
What is the central estimate of the increase total human-caused global surface temperature to date, i.e., from the pre-industrial era (1850-1900) to the most recent decade (2010-2019)? In addition, what is the “likely range” of this estimate and what exactly does “likely” mean here? (Hint: see footnote 4).
What does Figure SPM.1 show about the capacity of models with natural forces only (excluding human factors) to explain observed warming (global surface temperature) as observed over the last 50 years?
What are the relative contributions to warming of the two groups of human influence: GHGs versus other human drivers? What role in warming has been played by natural factors like solar, volcanic and other internal variability?
Find the region for Davis in Figure SPM.3 and summarize the type of observed change in each of the three weather/climate extremes.

***NOTE: Starting with this class you will be asked to self-assess your level of preparation and contribution to small group discussions according to the table below.

Level	Description
5	I read the reading(s) carefully, I have a copy with me that I marked up with my notes, I have an initial idea of how to respond to the questions posed under the reading (in the course schedule), and I contributed actively and informatively to my group's discussion. (This might have included asking specific, informed questions about things I don't fully understand in the paper.) I was here on time at the start of group discussion.
4	I read the reading(s) and have a copy with me, I contributed actively to my group's discussion. I was here on time at the start of group discussion.
3	I scanned the reading(s) and have the basic idea, I contributed a modest amount to my group's discussion.
2	I have the reading(s) but haven't read it deeply. I contributed a small amount to my group's discussion. [**Or: I wasn't prepared at all but picked it up quickly and discussed critically once in discussion.]
1	I'm here, aren't I? What more do you want from me?

10/2

3. Evidence and impacts--Overview (cont'd) and extreme events.
Slides

**Note: be prepared for the same type of self assessment exercise as last class

IPCC (2021) from above, continued:

The future path of anthropogenic drivers of climate change (mainly net emissions of GHGs) is quite uncertain. How does the report deal with this? (Hint: they use SSPs.) What are SSPs and what range is considered here?
What is shape of the curve depicting how increasing levels of cumulative CO2 emissions map into an increase in global surface temperature (relative to 1850-1900)?
With respect to hot temperature extremes over land, an extreme event that might happen once in 50 years in 1850-1900 is how many times more likely to occur under future global warming level of 2 degrees Celsius?

Extreme events:

Haskett, Jonathan D. 2023. Is That Climate Change? The Science of Extreme Event Attribution. CRS Report R47583. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, pp. 1-12.

What is the Congressional Research Service (CRS)? Is it a trustworthy source?
What is the “risk-based” approach to extreme event attribution analysis? What is the “Risk Ratio (RR)”? How is it expressed mathematically and what is the interpretation?
What range of conclusions—from least to most conclusive—emerge from extreme event attribution studies, e.g., for the RR?
One example discussed was the “extreme heat attribution study of record-high May 2017 temperatures in South Korea” (p. 9). Did those authors find that human induced climate change caused the event? If not what did they conclude (in numeric terms and in simple language in your own words).
What policy relevance does this have? Consider legal settings, U.S. policy and international climate policy.

Due tomorrow:
Warm-up - Referencing and Reflection

Assigned tomorrow: Essay #1

Stott, P. 2016. How climate change affects extreme weather events. Science, 352(6293), 1517-1518.

10/7

4. Social cost of carbon (SCC)
Slides
Video (45min)

1.
Example policy memo:
We will read, critique and discuss this example student submission of a policy memo from the past. Read the prompt and then comment on the example submission. What are the strengths and weaknesses? How would you revise it given that intended non-expert audience it's intended for?

2.
Rennert, K., et al. (2022). Comprehensive evidence implies a higher social cost of CO₂. Nature, 610, 687–692.
Note: (1) Focus on 687-691 (though you can skim the methods below this for further detail); (2) I’ll use the acronym SCC for the social cost of carbon, while this paper uses “SC-CO2” for the same thing.

Who are the researchers here that are generating these estimates of the SCC? (Are the authors here U.S. government scientists? Non-government employee academics?)
What is the social cost of carbon (SCC) meant to reflect/include?
How is it meant to be used in policy analysis--what is the objective behind generating this estimate?
What are the key modelling steps taken for estimating the SCC?
What are the “Resources for the Future Socioeconomic Projections (RFF-SPs)”?
Why didn’t they just use the IPCCs Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs)?
What is the level of authors’ preferred estimate for the SCC and how does it compare to the value used during the Biden administration through 2022 when this paper was published?
To what parameter is the SCC most sensitive?
There are different categories of damage/loss that contribute to the SCC. Which of these are included here and which contributes most to the SCC? Which are not yet included in SCC estimates?

Due today before class:
Use AI as a Tutor

Greenstone, M. and C. R. Sunstein. 2016. Donald Trump Should Know: This Is What Climate Change Costs Us. The New York Times, Dec. 15.
This is a good short introduction to the social cost of carbon (SCC) and sets the initial political context of the Trump administration.

Mooney, Chris. 2017. “New EPA document reveals sharply lower estimate of the cost of climate change.” Washington Post, October 11, 2017.
This is a useful discussion of how the of the social cost of carbon (SCC) has become a political flash point and how its treatment has changed from the Obama to the Trump administration.

10/9

SCC, cont'd

I will also introduce the topic of discounting in class, a key "ingredient" of the SCC. But there is no additional reading required until next week so that you can concentrate on the SCC reading above as well as the assigned essay.

Due tomorrow:
Essay #1

Special mini-topic: Mental health and engaging with climate policy.

On 10/14 we will dedicate some class time to discussing this topic. We will have a short discussion board assignment after this class that asks you to briefly react to one of the three sources just below on climate and mental health. You do not need to read all three of these or any one in its entirety. Just scan them and decide what you find interesting and/or helpful.

Tolentino, Jia. 2023. What to Do with Climate Emotions. The New Yorker, July 10, 2023.
- Byline: “If the goal is to insure that the planet remains habitable, what is the right degree of panic, and how do you bear it?”
- Describes experiences of those experiencing climate related mental health stress; climate-aware therapists including those trying to write guidance for helping clients in this space (e.g. Weintrobe and Davenport);
- I especially recommend the material associated with author Leslie Davenport (just search that name to find).
University of Colorado Boulder (UCB). 2023. 6 tips for coping with climate anxiety. University of Colorado Boulder - Health & Wellness Services. Accessed: October 10, 2023.
- The title is self-explanatory. This is a concise and dry but helpful list of tips for students.
Daeninck, C., Kioupi, V. and Vercammen, A., 2023. Climate anxiety, coping strategies and planning for the future in environmental degree students in the UK. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, p.1126031.
- This is an academic article reporting results of a study developed, “to understand the occurrence and personal management of climate anxiety in UK university students through an online questionnaire”, and to “investigate the association between climate anxiety, coping strategies and future planning”.

10/14

5. Discounting:

General introduction - Slides, Video (38 min)

1. Read these 7 pages: US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (2010). Guidelines for Preparing Economic Analysis, Chapter 6: Discounting Future Benefits and Costs, EPA 240-R-10-001. [The pdf I provided includes only the assigned pages (1:2, 7, 11-14)--the full chapter is here.]

What's the difference between "intergenerational" and "intragenerational" discounting?
What's the difference between a "prescriptive" and "descriptive" approach to choosing the discount rate?

2. Discounting mechanics: Handout, Video (16 min) and Whiteboard that goes with video.

How do you calculate the discount weight and how does it change as the discount rate changes?
What's the difference between a "future value" and a "present value"?

3. Review this stylized example of discounting and the social cost of carbon: Video (13 min, though skip to 4:30 if you've already covered the videos linked to the left) and the Excel spreadsheet.

10/16

6. Carbon markets
Slides
Video

1. Krugman, P. 2010. Building a green economy. New York Times, April 11, 2010, p. MM34. --> Here's a PDF.
Read the first half of the article (i.e., you can stop at the section "The Cost of Action". The rest of the article is useful but parts are dated.

1. Krugman states that "If there's a single central insight in economics, it's this: There are mutual gains from transactions between consenting adults." What does this mean and how does it relate to cap and trade?
2. What is Krugman's case for a "market-based solution" like cap and trade (or an emissions tax) over "telling people what will or will not be permitted" (command and control)?

Newell, R. G., Pizer, W. A., & Raimi, D. 2014. Carbon Markets: Past, Present, and Future. Annual Review of Resource Economics, 6:191-215. Note: focus on these sections: 1-2, 3.1.3, 3.2.1, 4.3, 4.5, Table 1, Figures 1-2. (This is about 9 pages of reading.)
1. What does it mean for GHGs to be a "global, uniformly mixed pollutant"? How does this impact (1) the effectiveness of individual (versus global) action, and (2) the suitability of cap and trade as a policy instrument?
2. What is the definition of "cost-effectiveness" in the context of cap and trade and how does it depend on (as the authors say) "what, where and when flexibility"?
3. What's the point of building an offset scheme into a cap and trade program?
4. What does it mean for emissions reductions to be "additional" in the context of offsets?

Assigned tomorrow: Essay #2

Here's a video on the basics of cap and trade in an international context from the Norwegian Ministry of Environment.

10/21

Carbon markets, cont'd
...

9. California climate policy

Slides
Video (38 min)

Petek, Gabriel. 2025. Assessing California’s Climate Policies—Cap-and-Trade Reauthorization. Legislative Analyst’s Office, May 7, 2025. Available at: https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5042.

The fundamental questions here are whether and with what modifications CA’s C&T program should be extended.* What legislation originally provided the authority to establish the C&T program and for how long would the extension discussed here extend that authority?
What objectives or potential legislative priorities are potentially impacted by C&T and thus discussed in this analysis?
What tradeoffs exist between these objectives, i.e., how might pursuing one of these worsen performance on others?
How does cap and trade (C&T) generate concerns about affordability for people (not firms) in California? Within design of the C&T program itself, how might these affordability issues be eased?
The state gets emissions allowances into the hands of polluters by auctioning them or giving them away for free. Roughly, what share are given away and why?
If the C&T program ceased, would CA still meet its GHG reduction targets with existing policies?
Why is it the case that subsidizing GHG reductions from emitters that are subject to the C&T system will probably not change total emissions? (And how does this connect to the argument in our other reading on CA policy from Stavins?)

*Note: Extended authorization for the CA’s C&T policy was passed and signed into law on 9/19/25.

A.
CARB (California Air Resources Board). 2021. “Cap-and-Trade Program: Allowance Distribution Factsheet.” January 29, 2021. https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2021-01/CT_Allowance_FactSheet_Jan2021.pdf.

B.
CARB (California Air Resources Board). 2021. “FAQ Cap-and-Trade Program.” January, 2021. https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2021-05/nc-FAQ_CT_Jan2021.pdf.

10/23

9. California climate policy

A.
CLEE (Center for Law, Energy & the Environment) (2022). “California Climate Policy Dashboard.” Berkeley Law at the University of California, Berkeley. Accessed April 24, 2022. https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/clee/research/climate/climate-policy-dashboard/.
1. Scan the various “California Climate Programs”. Note: the set of GHG mitigation policies besides cap and trade are sometimes referred to as “complementary measures”.
2. Scan the various “California Climate Policies”. What policies underly California’s C&T program? Of the two main types of climate change policies, are these policies solely focused on mitigation?
3. Scan the various “California Climate Regulators”. What agency heads California’s GHG regulation?

B.
Stavins, R. (2016). State's Low Carbon Fuel Standard doesn't cut net emissions. Capitol Weekly, January 27. Available online: http://capitolweekly.net/low-carbon-fuel-standard-emissions-cut8909-2/.

1. What's the logic behind Stavins' argument that California's so-called "complementary policies" that augment cap and trade, for example the Low Carbon Fuels Standard (LCFS), actually have a "perverse effect" and undermine California's capacity to serve as a leading example to the world?

Useful reference for all things climate policy in CA:
http://calcarbondash.org/

10/28

10. Carbon mitigation policies and environmental justice

The reading below--Hernandez-Cortes and Meng (2022)--uses regression analysis as the key statistical methodology. I highly recommend that you work through this MRU introduction to regression analysis (with video and interactive data) to brush up on that approach, especially if you have not studied regression for a while, or at all.

***Oct. 2023 - Note: Sadly the interactive data tool linked just above for the MRU introduction above looks broken. But the instruction videos are still good:
(1) Intro to Linear Regression -- This one sets the scene. If you are comfortable thinking about a scatter plot of two variables in a graph, with an outcome variable (y) on the vertical axis and an explanatory variable (x) you think might drive that outcome on the horizontal axis, then you can easily skip this one.
(2) Interpreting the Regression Line -- This 7 minute video has the key content: the regression equation y = b + m*x and how it's "fitted" to the data to estimate the relationship between x and y.
We'll extend this intuition in Hernandez-Cortes and Meng (2022) to understand what's happened to local criteria air pollution emissions (non-GHGs bad for health), specifically: How are they changing as a function of time? And how did the CA C&T policy change this? And what did that mean for exposure to these pollutants in disadvantage communities?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Hernandez-Cortes, D. and Meng, K.C., 2022. Do environmental markets cause environmental injustice? Evidence from California’s carbon market. National Bureau of Economic Research, No. w27205, revision date Feb. 2022.
This will be a challenging paper that we will read/discuss over two sessions. For today read from the beginning through the end of page 15 and the paragraph that spills over to page 16.
1. What is “market-induced spatial reallocation of pollution” and in what ways can it be desirable and undesirable?
2. What is a criteria air pollutant (CAP)? Is reducing CAPs part of the goal of California's greenhouse gas (GHG) market?
3. What are the summarized key findings (e.g. with respect to GHG/CAP emissions overall and to the environmental justice gap, including differences by California region)?

10/30

11. Carbon mitigation policies & environmental justice, cont'd

A.
Hernandez-Cortes and Meng (2022) continued:
Read Section 5 and 6 (pp. 18-24 and 30). Within these pages, the “Robustness checks” section of pp.19-20 can be skimmed/skipped. Don’t forget to read the Conclusion (p. 30).

Given that the estimates in Table 1 for GHGs are statistically significant, what does it mean (how do we interpret) the result that estimates signs are κp1 > 0, κp2< 0; and κp1 + κp2< 0? (And similarly for CAPs, though note that most but not all estimates for CAPs are statistically significant.)
Was there an EJ gap in exposure to CAPs in 2008, specifically for facilities that would eventually be regulated by the C&T program?
Given that the estimates in Table 2 for CAPs are statistically significant (mostly), what does it mean (how do we interpret) the result that estimates signs are βp1 > 0, βp2< 0; and βp1 + βp2< 0?
Were the average outcome estimates (from Tables 1 & 2) the experience of all zip codes in CA or did some experience a different direction in the size of EJ gaps (and if so which ones)?
Do the authors think market-based policies should be used to address EJ concerns? Why/why not?

B.
CARB (California Air Resources Board). 2021. “FAQ Cap-and-Trade Program.” January, 2021. https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2021-05/nc-FAQ_CT_Jan2021.pdf. Read pp. 1-2. Note that the "2018 study from the University of California, Santa Barbara" is an earlier version of Hernandez-Cortes and Meng (2022).

What is CARB’s position on whether the Cap-and-Trade Program has made worse the air quality in disadvantaged communities? Why is this a hard effect to identify?

11/4

Wrap up on EJ/HC&M (2022)

+

In-class portion of midterm

1. Wrap up on EJ/Hernandez-Cortes and Meng.

2. In-class portion of midterm -- 30 minutes.

The midterm will have 3 sections--each has the same format involving several questions you will answer with a written paragraph or two.
- 1 section will be in class (today) focusing on: California climate policy from the Petek (2025) and Stavins (2016) readings
- 2 sections will be take-home (assigned after class today; due Monday at midnight).

Assigned today: take-home portion of midterm.

11/6

13. California electric vehicle policy

Tal, G., Davis, A. and Garas, D. 2022. California's Advanced Clean Cars II: Issues and Implications. UC Davis Institute for Transportation Studies Working Paper UCD-ITS-RR-22-73, May 31. Available online: https://escholarship.org/content/qt1g05z2x3/qt1g05z2x3.pdf.

Make sure you know the full name for and definition of the key jargon involved here: ACC I, ACC II, light duty vehicle, EV, BEV, PHEV, ZEV, DCFC, and L2 charger.
The marquee component of the ACC II regulation is the ZEV sales requirement—what is this (qualitatively and numerically)? How big of a jump in 2026 is this for CA (i.e. what’s the increase relative to the current level)?
Besides the sales requirement, there are also additional performance standards—what are these and why are they included?
This is a California regulation but is expected to impact many other U.S. states. What is the federal legal arrangement/ framework that facilitates this? What are the benefits of this? What is the potential risk?
In Figure 1, why does the authors’ “likely compliance scenario” of what they predict will occur (in terms of ZEV sales as a percentage of all sales in CA) differ from the sales requirement in the policy (ZEV baseline)?
What do the authors estimate will be the cost of installing the battery chargers needed to meet this mandate, specifically for California over the time horizon of ACC II and also in terms of the average for each ZEV?

11/11

No class -- Veterans Day

Take-home portion of mid-term due yesterday (Monday)

11/13

12. U.S. politics and public attitudes
Slides

Krosnick, Jon A., and Bo MacInnis. 2020. Climate Insights 2020: Policies and Politics. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future, pp 1-37 (pages are sparse).  HTML version.
1.    The survey data was collected during the Covid-19 pandemic (May-Aug 2020). Does that seem to have influenced the responses?
2.    What policies were most/least popular?
3.    How do you explain the discrepancy between the support for GHG-mitigation policy in this report and lack of broad national U.S. policy to reduce GHGs?

We will also read a few pages from Kull and Ramsay on attitudes towards recent policy developments (e.g. Paris Agreement).
Read: pp. 2-5 and 11-15.
Kull, Steven and Clay Ramsay. 2016.  Considering the Cost of Clean: Americans on Energy, Air Quality and Climate. Program for Public Consultation, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, pp. 1-32. Available at: https://cissm.umd.edu/sites/default/files/2019-07/Considering%20the%20Cost%20of%20Clean%20-%20050416.pdf.
1. What percentage of respondents overall approve/favor the Paris Agreement and how does this differ if we look separately at Democrats and Republicans?  How do these levels compare with the same figures for the Clean Power Plan?

* See this website with fantastic U.S. maps decomposed to the state/county/district level for various climate questions from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.

11/18

14. U.S. Climate Policy

Mahajan, Megan, Olivia Ashmoore, Jeffrey Rissman, Robbie Orvis and Anand Gopal. 2022. Updated Inflation Reduction Act Modeling Using the Energy Policy Simulator. Energy Innovation Policy & Technology LLC, August 23. Available online: https://energyinnovation.org/publication/updated-inflation-reduction-act-modeling-using-the-energy-policy-simulator/.

With respect to U.S. economy-wide GHG emissions, what is the moderate estimate of the additional (due to IRA) decrease in emissions by 2030? You might express this in percentage terms using 2005 emissions as a reference point.
With respect to U.S. economy-wide GHG emissions reductions from 2005 levels by 2030, how close numerically is the “moderate” estimate to the U.S. nationally determined commitment contribution (NDC) under the (internationally negotiated) Paris Agreement?
Political attacks of proposed environmental protection laws commonly assert that such laws kill jobs and hurt the economy. What are the estimated outcomes for jobs and the economy?
While “the IRA is the most significant federal climate and clean energy legislation in U.S. history, and its provisions could cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 37 to 43 percent below 2005 levels” by 2030, it also includes fossil fuel extraction leasing provisions expected to increase GHG emissions. How does the expected increases in GHGs compare with the expected GHG reductions from the IRA under the moderate scenario for bother measures?
While the “IRA’s $369 billion in funding for emissions-reducing climate and clean energy provisions run the gamut from clean energy and electric vehicle (EV) tax credits to large-scale investments in domestic clean technology manufacturing” (p. 1) the vast majority of the emissions reductions are expected to come from one sector. What sector is this and why is this the case?
The core objective of the IRA is environmental (reduce GHGs and accompanying criteria air pollutants to reduce global climate change damages and domestic air pollution human health impacts). What other, non-environmental objectives does the IRA pursue?

11/20

Guest speaker:

Cora Ballek

Cora earned her bachelor's degree from UC Davis in the Environmental Policy Analysis & Planning program in 2023 (Honors Program, Summa Cum Laude). In 2023 she was selected as an Executive Fellow at Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation (LCI), via the University of Sacramento's Capital Fellows Program. Subsequently in 2024 she was appointed as a Climate Research Analyst at LCI.

11/25

15. International climate policy agreements
Slides

Stavins, Robert N. 2021. The Biden Administration and International Climate Change Policy and Action
Lawfare, January 14, 2021. (About 6 pages)

What are the key milestones in international climate change negotiations, i.e., what happened in what year at Rio de Janeiro, Kyoto, and Paris?
What were the key flaws of the Kyoto Protocol (KP)?
How is the Paris agreement different from the KP? What are NDCs? [See also Calliari, D'Aprile and Davide (2016) below.]
Is it difficult to leave/rejoin the Paris agreement?
If the prospects for “meaningful and ambitious climate legislation will be difficult, if not impossible” at the federal level in the U.S., what are the other policy avenues for making progress on climate? (Update: Since this article was published, the ambitious IRA was passed into law in 2022. However, the IRA is insufficient for meeting the U.S. NDC. The ideas here are relevant for closing this gap, especially in the absence of *additional* legislation beyond the IRA.)

Calliari, Elisa and D'Aprile, Aurora and Davide, Marinella, Unpacking the Paris Agreement (February 4, 2016). Review of Environment, Energy and Economics (Re3) February, 2016, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2740429.

There is one mitigation objective of the Paris Agreement stated in explicit numeric terms--what is it?
What is an "NDC"?
With respect to adaptation, are countries required to take any specific measures by a specific deadline?
What compromise was reached between developing and developed countries with respect to developed country liability for loss and damage from climate change?
What is the Global Stocktake and how is it linked with submission of new NDCs?
Are the emissions targets and/or financing commitments legally binding?

For an update relative to the Stavins (2021) article at left see the post "What Happened in Glasgow at COP26?" also by Stavins.

Optional: The Climate Action Tracker -- up to date assessment of country commitments and their sufficiency for reaching global goals.

11/27

No class -- Thanksgiving

12/2

Guest speaker:
Jordan Ramalingam

Slides

Jordan earned his bachelor's degree from UC Davis in the Environmental Policy Analysis & Planning program in 2016 and has worked at the California Air Resources Board (CARB) since 2015. For several years he worked in the Alternative Fuels Section of the Industrial Strategies Division on (1) the Low Carbon Fuel Standard group as lead staff member, responsible for informing long-term policy design of the program and aligning policy signals with CARB's broader climate and air quality targets; and (2) Carbon Neutrality Planning and Modeling to chart the path to statewide carbon neutrality by 2045 (e.g. by gathering information from workshops and other multi-agency efforts to inform the path to carbon neutrality for the next statewide Climate Change Scoping Plan). In 2025, he became Branch Chief covering Corporate Greenhouse Gas Reporting and Climate Financial Risk Disclosure, leading a large staff in developing California's corporate greenhouse gas emissions reporting program (under SB 253) and the climate financial risk disclosure program (under SB 261).

12/4

16. International climate policy agreements -- Environmental justice

Carlarne, C.P. and Colavecchio, J.D., 2019. Balancing equity and effectiveness: The Paris agreement & the future of international climate change law. New York University Environmental Law Journal, 27, p.107-182.
Read 107-137 and skim 146-156 (to get a sense of individual country approaches to NDCs)

The authors cite the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.: "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice" (p. 109). How does this apply to the context of international climate policy?
Prior to the PA, what was the “preexisting paradigm” for international climate law? (Note: some of this may come early in the reading while some may come from Section II.)
Starting with the PA (including the prior minor agreements that built up to it) what was the new paradigm for international climate law? (Note: again, some of this may come early in the reading while some may come from Section II, and the transition to that section.)
What country characteristics are correlated with low climate vulnerability?
What does “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities” (CBDRRC) mean” in the context of international climate agreements?
How do the following terms overlap and differ--justice, equity, and fairness? Which of these have/have not been referred to frequently in international climate agreement texts? Why is/isn’t each respective term used frequently?

Old topics/papers no longer covered:

Dr. Austin Brown
(CV, LinkedIn)

Dr. Austin Brown holds a Ph.D. in Biophysics from Stanford University. Prior to 2017, Dr. Brown spent nine years in Washington, DC, working for the Department of Energy, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and as Assistant Director for Clean Energy and Transportation at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Obama Administration. In 2017 he came to UC Davis to serve as the Executive Director of the Policy Institute for Energy, Environment, and the Economy. During his time at UCD, Dr. Brown worked to build connections between the research, policy, and business communities at the local, state, and national levels with a focus on equitable clean energy and sustainable transportation. Since September 2021 he has served as the Senior Director for Transportation Emissions, White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy.

***Since our guest speaker is remote, this class will meet remotely on Zoom.

8. Morality and carbon markets: ethics of trading pollution rights
Slides

Sandel, M. J. 2012. What money can't buy: the moral limits of markets. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. (Excerpt covering tradable pollution permits and offsets, pp. 72-79).
1. What message does Sandel believe is conveyed by using government regulation (as opposed to tradable permits) to control pollution?
2. Buying the right to pollute does damage to which two norms?
3. Does Sandel believe that the effect of market instruments (like cap and trade) on norms implies that they are always a bad idea?

McCloskey, D. N. 2012. The Poverty of Communitarianism, Book Review of What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, by Michael J. Sandel. Claremont Review of Books XII(4), pp. 57-59.
1. According to McCloskey, what are Sandel's two key moral arguments?

7. Carbon markets: offsets

Schapiro, Mark. 2010. Conning the climate: Inside the carbon-trading shell game. Harper's Magazine, Feb. 2010, 31-39.
1. What's wrong with this claim on p. 33: "the (offset) systems' ultimate raison d'etre (is): to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by channeling funds into cleaner technologies."
2. What seems to be the track record with respect to demonstrating additionality for offset projects under the CDM?

Guest speaker: Derek Nixon
Auctions and Market Unit Supervisor in the Air Quality Program for the state of Washington Department of Ecology

Derek's work involves implementing elements of the State of Washington's Climate Commitment Act, which will kick off January 1, 2023. Washington’s new "cap-and-invest program" is the second economy-wide program in the US (after CA).

***Since our guest speaker is remote, this class will meet remotely on Zoom.

Guest speaker:

Dr. Fran Moore

From Prof. Moore's website: "I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at UC Davis, working at the intersection of environmental economics and climate science. My research seeks to improve our understanding of the economic and social impacts of climate change and to better understand our ability to adapt to those impacts. To do this I combine econometric analysis, experimental approaches, climate model output, and economic modeling. ... I post on Blue Sky @ClimateFranLinks to an external site. about climate change, economics, and science. .... For the 2022-2023 academic year I was on leave from Davis working as a senior economist at the Council of Economic Advisers. While at CEA I worked on: Chapter 9 of the 2023 Economic Report of the PresidentLinks to an external site. on climate costs to the US and the economics of Federal adaptation policy; (and a) White PaperLinks to an external site. on the integration of climate risks into macroeconomic forecasting for the President’s Budget."