In 2015, the world celebrated as 196 parties at the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP21 in Paris agreed on a legally binding international treaty on climate change, mitigation, adaptation and finance. In 2022, our carbon budget has shrunk to such an extent that the average country has only eight years left if we are to stay within the 1.5°C goal. Industry alone accounts for 30%, transport for 16% and commercial buildings for 6.6% of our greenhouse gas emissions, but what can we do?
Fortunately, many of the climate solutions needed to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement already exist. But despite certain actions often being named as “climate game-changers”, there is no one “silver bullet” that will take us all the way. In fact, some popular climate actions show wide gaps between their assumed and actual effects on the climate. How climate actions are combined may have further multiplying or nullifying effects.
This course will be taught in four sessions of four hours each. 1) The first session will be dedicated to understanding the underlying system dynamics of climate change, learning about its major causes and biggest levers to solve it. We will facilitate an En-ROADS workshop, a highly interactive role-play climate simulation developed by Climate Interactive and MIT. 2) Based on the findings from the simulation, the second session will shift the focus from the global to the intra-organizational level, discussing climate actions that different business divisions within an organization can adopt. 3) In order to be as effective as possible, climate actions need to be integrated in a broader strategy, beginning with target setting. During the third session, students will learn about existing climate action frameworks such as Science-Based Targets and discuss how to initiate change towards more climate action within an organization. 4) Prior to the fourth session, students will be asked to form teams and research existing corporate climate strategies and, based on the learnings from the first three sessions, to make recommendations on further actions and how to incentivize and enshrine them within the organization’s culture. Each group shall present their findings in class as their final assessment.