With the adoption of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations in 2015, sustainability has taken centre stage in public policy debates at global, national and local levels. The EU Green Deal is at the core of the Agenda of the European Union. The first part of this class introduces and explores conceptions of sustainability in its social, economic and environmental dimensions. We inter alia consider normative foundations, welfare indicators, synergies and tradeoffs among different goals. The second part addresses multiple dimensions for sustainability governance, including the international perspective, political economy and governance challenges. While climate change will be one of the main illustrative topics throughout the class, the final sessions will examine other specific themes in environmental policy in more detail (biodiversity, food policy, and topics chosen by student teams). Concepts used in this class are rooted mainly in economics and political science, their treatment will be non-formal.
This course is for 2nd year MIA, MPP and MDS students only.
Instructor
- Nils aus dem Moore , Adjunct