F8TR 2001 - Political Economy of Climate Change

This Master-level course offers a political-economy analysis of the ecological transition, drawing on insights from economics, history and energy systems sciences. It combines theoretical frameworks, essential concepts of environmental economics, empirical tools, and policy analysis to address four key questions:

• Why did carbon-based economies emerge and persist?
• How is the contemporary economy-energy system organized and how does it interact with contemporary inequalities?
• How are climate and resource constraints measured and represented in economic modeling?
• How do economic systems change, through which instruments and with what distributional effects?

The course is structured around four blocks:

Block 1 — An Economic History of Resource Use: historical trajectories of economies, economics and resource use (Sessions 1–3).

Block 2 — Energy Regimes and Inequality: control of resources, inequality of contributions, inequality of impacts (Sessions 4–6).

Block 3 — Modeling the Transition: damage functions and integrated assessment models, green-growth and post-growth scenarios, modeling the political economy of

the transition (Sessions 7–9).

Block 4 — Policies, Politics and Coalitions: policy instruments, financing, coalitions (Sessions 10–12).

Each block builds on the previous one. Block 1 establishes the historical and conceptual ground. Block 2 sets out the contemporary structure of the economy-energy system and its distributional anatomy. Block 3 interrogates how economists model the transition and what their models capture or miss. Block 4 examines the political economy of policy instruments, financing and coalition-building for transformation. Active engagement is expected throughout the course (in the session for which they have submitted a memo, students lead the discussion of the readings).

Learning outcomes:

• Master the core economic concepts required to analyze the ecological transition: externalities, public goods, intertemporal choice, distribution, and the political economy of market failures and public intervention.
• Situate the ecological transition historically, drawing on the long history of resource use, energy regimes, and the political economy of inequality from organic to fossil

economies.

• Analyze contemporary energy regimes in terms of property, control, rent capture, and the inequality of contributions and impacts of climate change, both between

and within countries.

• Critically assess integrated assessment models and climate-economic scenarios, including the role of discount rates and damage functions, and the assumptions

behind green growth, degrowth, and post-growth proposals.

• Evaluate transition economic policy instruments —taxation, subsidies, regulations, financing — in terms of their ecological and macroeconomic impact, as well as their

distributional incidence and political feasibility.

• Develop original political-economy arguments about the ecological transition,drawing on scholarly literature, empirical data, and case studies discussed in class.
• Communicate analyses orally and in writing, including through structured memos and the in-class discussion of readings.

Assessment combines three components:

• Weekly memos (1/3 of the total grade). Students submit four written memos over the

semester, covering the compulsory readings for sessions of their choosing. Each memo is

approximately 1,000 words. Memos are submitted by 11:59 pm on the Monday preceding

the corresponding session and shared with the entire class. Memo authors lead the in-class

discussion of the readings in their chosen sessions, and the grade reflects both the written

work and the quality of the oral engagement.

2.Mid-term exam (1/3 of the total grade). On-site written exam of 1h30, combining multiple-

choice questions and open-ended questions, based on classes and readings up to and

including Session 6 (end of Block 2).

• Final exam (1/3 of the total grade). On-site written exam of 2h. Students answer two open-ended questions chosen from a list of topics, drawing on classes 7–12, the weekly memos, and personal reflection. Grading rewards the use of course references, the application of concepts seen in class, and the structured development of an argument.

The assessment scheme combines three distinct types of evaluation (memo writing with oral defence; multiple-choice and short-answer exam; structured essay exam).

In-class instruction: 24 hours per semester

Required readings and preparation for class: Approximately 50 hours per semester

Research and writing for individual assessments: Approximately 35 hours per semester