Energy and Climate Policy for Sustainable Development

The course provides an introduction to energy and climate economics principles and policy applications. The first part of the course will introduce the microeconomic foundation of energy demand and supply as well as market failures and behavioral anomalies. In a second part, we introduce the concept of investment analysis (such as the NPV) in the context of renewable and energy-efficient technologies. In the last part, we use the previously introduced concepts to analyze energy and climate policies: from a government perspective, we discuss the mechanisms and implications of market oriented and non-market oriented policy instruments.

Throughout the class, we will combine the course material with insights from current research in energy and climate policy. . This combination will enable students to understand standard scientific literature in the field of energy economics and policy. Moreover, the class aims to show students how to relate current issues in the energy and climate spheres that influence industrialized and developing countries to insights from energy economics and policy.

The students will develop an understanding of economic principles and tools necessary to analyze energy and climate issues and to understand energy and climate policy instruments. 

• Affordable and clean energy
• Sustainable cities and communities
• Responsible consumption and production
• Climate action

In presence

During the theoretical part of the course a set of energy and climate economics tools will be given to students through lectures. The theoretical knowledge is deepened by exercise sessions where students are expected to participate actively. The applied nature of the course is achieved by discussing academic papers in class. The papers focus on energy and climate policy instruments. The course offers a website (hosted in the platform icorsi.ch) where it is possible to download useful materials for the course like slides of the lecture as well as further readings.

The evaluation policy is designed to verify the knowledge acquired by students during the course. At the end of the course there will be a written exam covering the topics of the course.