EMDV8080 International Climate Change Policy and Economics
This course introduces students to foundations of and recent developments in international climate change policy. Topics covered include climate change response options, and economic and policy perspectives on the problem of international cooperation; international environmental agreements, especially the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement; international carbon markets and climate finance; cooperation on technology; international dimensions of adaptation to climate change; relationship with other international objectives such as the Sustainable Development Goals; and international governance of climate change action. The course provides a non-technical introduction to some economic thinking on climate change; no prior economics study is needed. The course is interactive, and students are encouraged to engage actively.
EMDV8011 Environmental Markets
This course explores the design of environmental markets and identifies the factors that affect their effectiveness in achieving desired environmental outcomes. Students will acquire the essential knowledge necessary to identify and develop effective market mechanisms that address environmental externalities in both developing and developed countries. Furthermore, the course will empower students to evaluate the performance of these markets and assess their impacts on the environment, socio-economic welfare, local livelihoods, and environmental justice. This course will focus on the practical aspects of various environmental markets and analyse case studies, lessons learned, and best practices from programs and initiatives worldwide. Topics covered will include a variety of market mechanisms, such as Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES), water markets, biodiversity offset markets, cap-and-trade systems, weather and climate risk insurance, and carbon farming. Additionally, the course will examine commonly used environmental valuation methods, highlight their limitations, and discuss their practical application in policymaking, resource allocation, and the design of market mechanisms.
PP5027-PP5030 Global Food Policy and Sustainable Food System
Food is fundamental to human existence and wellbeing. Almost a third of the world’s population rely on agriculture for livelihood. Ending hunger, ensuring access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food for all people and securing livelihoods and advancing welfare of farming communities are crucial national and global policy challenges. Consequently, governments of both developed and developing countries dedicate a non-trivial amount of their national budgets to agriculture.
A sustainable and resilient food system lies at the heart of food and livelihood security. The food system is complex and heterogeneous. It involves many inter-linked, non-linear processes involving feedback and feedforward effects. The system can be extremely fragile and vulnerable to external shocks such as conflicts, natural disaster, economic downturns and pandemics. Additionally, food systems in highly urbanized societies face many unique sustainability challenges including overnutrition, inequality in access, food dessert and food waste.
Policy makers and development practitioners are expected to respond to the growing need for effective leadership in the area of food security. The objective of this module is to provide participants an in-depth understanding of the key concepts, issues and challenges associated with achieving food security globally and in the context of Asian mega cities, showing both their conceptual groundings and practical applications.
PP5515 Gender and Development
Gender issues lie at the heart of the development policy discourse of both developed and developing countries. In order to pursue inclusive growth, future policy makers and development practitioners need to have a solid understanding of the gender and development nexus. The objectives of this course are to train future policy makers and development practitioners to perform gender analysis and to develop and evaluate gender inclusive public policy in the context of international development. This course covers theoretical, methodological as well as practical aspects of gender analysis in various sectors of the economy and discusses how public policy and programs can be designed to bridge gender gaps. The course puts a specific emphasis on methodological issues including the available qualitative and quantitative instruments to measure empowerment and gender disparity.
PP5163 The Economics and Governance of Climate Change
This module provides a basic understanding of global climate change issues with a special focus on the economics and governance aspects. It begins with an introduction to climate science and discusses its history, economics, politics, the policy debates, international treaties, adaptation and mitigation policies and their limitations. The course uses a multi-disciplinary framework which draws on theories and evidence from economics, sociology, human geography and political science.