Explore Materials
Discover climate course materials and resources.
Search the shared repository of simulations, case descriptions and course syllabi to enhance your own climate-related teaching.
- Course
Climate change and biodiversity loss are existential threats to the planet, our own health and well-being, and the global economy. The course will identify several key players and leverage points in the capital market and elaborate on whether and how a “systems change” could be achieved to tackle these urgent challenges. In addition to governments and NGOs, the mobilization of capital markets plays a pivotal role. To mobilize capital markets, a thorough understanding of capital markets as well as the mechanisms and obstacles at work is required, as well as innovative solutions that overcome these obstacles. This course will provide a deep dive into several financial innovations that aim to overcome these obstacles and help mobilize capital markets to mitigate climate change and biodiversity loss at the system level. In this course, students will learn to think at the system-level, to understand the opportunities and challenges faced in mobilizing capital markets, and to assess concrete obstacles and whether and how financial innovations can bring scalable solutions for the benefit of society.
- Topics on: Finance, Operations, Strategy
- Course
After providing background on climate change risk and how it is modeled, the course covers important risk management and financial topics, such as the appropriate discount rate for valuing expected climate damages, potential impediments to private market incentives for adaption, mitigation, insurance, and financing of innovation to reduce GHG emissions. Public policy responses are then discussed. The last third of the course will focus on the impact of climate change risk on insurance and securities markets. The course is designed for Risk Management and Insurance Majors and Finance Majors who are interested in applying risk management and financial concepts and tools to issues raised by climate change.
- Topics on: Finance, Investing, Operations, Policy
- Course
Most recently taught Summer 2025
Often, our progress toward the remediation of persistently accumulating human damage to our collective home, the biosphere, is attributed to large-scale entities having a rather amorphous quality. Such are the industrial revolution, the global north, capitalism, colonialism, and countless preoccupied, habituated or denialist components of the human population. Yet, the dynamics of all types of leadership and management, whether in public, civic or private organizations, frequently push back on the progress desired, in more specific ways. These dynamics are so characteristic that climate ethics, an offshoot of environmental ethics, may seem to be cornered or futile. However, looking more closely at the essential functions of leadership and management, we may find the possibilities of change for the better: change that reverses climate change, or more widely, unsustainability. Conversely, we may find inadequate possibilities for such critical change.
The World Bank has estimated the global cost of corruption alone to be at least $2.6 trillion, or 5% of the global gross domestic product (GDP). Businesses and individuals pay over $1 trillion in bribes annually, which does not account for billions of dollars of both humanitarian and development aid that pass clandestinely from public to private hands, billions lost to tax evasion, and billions funneled to and from illegal trafficking. In addition, it does not account for billions of dollars enmeshed in conflicts of interest, ranging from campaign donations to regulatory loopholes and “private gain from public office”. All such transactions occur in globally widespread, yet deeply cryptic arenas. In this money-based environment, “what is just” in the distribution of programmatic goods fluctuates continuously, depending upon whose participation is permissible, assessable, and verifiable in decision processes. Some voices are loudly heard, others are barely heard, and still others are unheard; and the difference depends significantly upon the existing distribution of wealth, including the gateway conditions it projects, particularly power and privilege. The money funneled away could be used beneficially, but is instead wasted, as humans are, deprived of their lives and their strivings together with ecosystems, also wasted.
In this course, leadership and management are explored to determine their dynamics are and how these afflict our biospheric home—including virtually all life. The course is divided into 4 sections, the 1st is two weeks long, the 2nd and 3rd are each four weeks long, and the 4th is two weeks long. The topic of the 1st section is climate ethics, their content and context: how they work and how they are tripped by surrounding problematic discourses. The topic of the 2nd section is leadership: at its becomingly best, and how it demeans itself with incapability, irresponsibility and corruptibility. The topic of the 3rd section is management: at its operationally best, and how it degrades itself with dysfunctional hierarchy, captive systematization, and offensive behavior. The topic of the 4th section reverts to climate ethics: the necessity of accruing and maintaining value—of the right kind, and the necessity of creating and applying guidance—of the right kind. It is not only because the impacts of problematic ways of doing things are harmful to the biosphere but also because those impacts have others, which are increasingly desperate, rancorous and volatile.
- Topics on: Planning
- Course
Most recently taught Summer 2025
Computing and data analysis have become an indispensable tool for researchers and industry professionals working in virtually any aspect of the modern world. This course will introduce students to the fundamental concepts and methods that are broadly applicable to any data science project, with a thematic focus on climate and environmental data. This includes an introduction to Unix, programming, common data formats, analysis, and visualization. The primary focus will be to teach students the foundations of Python in a climate data science context, which is of the most widely used and accessible programming languages today. Students will also be introduced to cloud computing, which will be the primary tool for in class assignments and projects.
The course is designed to be accessible for any students with an interest in being able to ask and answer questions using data. This course will also be invaluable for those looking to interact with scientists and engineers, manage scientific projects, and develop policies in the realm of climate science and sustainability.
- Topics on: Analytics, Data Science
- Course
The modern civilization that we take for granted today is built upon the cornerstones of water and wastewater utility. However, after 100 years of proliferation, our conventional approach to providing these utilities is undergoing a reinvention: one driven by the need to support societal growth while protecting public health, providing economic sustainability and resiliency against future climate change, and reducing resource consumption. The Utility of the Future will require managers, engineers and scientists with strong technical foundations applied through the lens of sustainability. This class in Sustainable Water Treatment and Reuse will provide its students with the tools needed for a career working with a new generation of infrastructure. The first half of the course will cover fundamentals of site water balance and water and wastewater treatment, such as introduction to physical, chemical and biological treatment processes, and advanced treatment processes for water reuse. The second half of the course will cover the mass-energy balance, economics, carbon footprint of Water Resource Recovery Facilities for energy recovery and nutrient recovery. Case studies, site visits and guest lecturers will focus on the use of decentralized planning and treatment concepts to provide resiliency in our infrastructure systems. Coursework will expose students to the technical and economic factors involved in delivering feasible projects.
- Topics on: Engineering, Food, Resilence
- Course
Most recently taught 2025
This course will provide students with a detailed, practice-oriented understanding of global climate policy, regulation and litigation, as these are developing at the international level and in a number of jurisdictions around the world – with a particular focus on the United States, the European Union and China.
Foundations – The course will begin with a brief political history of corporate sustainability – from “CSR” to “ESG” – and the intellectual frameworks that, to this day, underpin sustainability and climate-related corporate sector policy. We will understand how the different acronyms have represented different stages and understandings of corporate conduct and stakeholder welfare, and how these characterise both debate and policy around ESG in our days.
This section will include an overview of key concepts and terms related to carbon and ESG.
Regulation – In the second part of the course, we will dive into the mechanics of how companies are being regulated in respect of sustainability (and particularly climate).
Classes will address in detail recent evolutions in global regulation of climate disclosures, but also green taxonomies, supply chain due diligence and director liability.
Our regulatory review will address both national frameworks (from the U.S. to Europe and beyond) and global voluntary standards. It will also include a discussion of corporate transition plans, net zero alliances and the related antitrust challenges – and the policies that are likely to develop around this.
We will also explore in some detail the ongoing political debate that is developing around climate regulation in the U.S. (from Congress, to States, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court), and how this debate is likely to evolve and affect future policy on either side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Carbon – The third part of the course will focus on carbon.
We will begin with a basic review of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions accounting rules, and then turn to carbon markets (both voluntary and compliance) and carbon offsets.
We will then turn to green deals and green public spending, and explore in some detail various “clean technology” alternatives – from nuclearenergy to solar & wind, carbon capture and geoengineering – and the comparative costs, advantages and limitations of each.
Sustainable finance – The fourth part of the course will be dedicated to the wide wild world of “sustainable finance”.
We will start by looking at numbers and trends in impact investing and the various financial products that have been animating this space, from ESG funds to green bonds and loans, derivative instruments and so on – all the way to blended finance and public-private partnerships (PPPs).
We will the dedicate one class to exploring the role and evolution of the various service providers that populate the sustainable finance ecosystem – in particular ESG ratings, benchmarks and ESG data providers.
Litigation, geopolitics – Our course’s final classes will address potentially a range of related topics, chosen also in response to the interests expressed by the students. This may include: sustainability and climate-related litigation against companies and boards; shareholder activism; the geo-politics of net zero; climate justice; and a vertical focus on certain jurisdictions (such as China or India).
No prior knowledge of U.S. or EU law are assumed or needed in order to take part in the course.
- Topics on: ESG, Impact, Net Zero, Net Zero Strategies, Policy
- Course
This course focuses on three questions:
1. What should the world do about climate change? This is a normative question. Answering it requires an understanding of the science and impacts of climate change, of the technological options for addressing climate change, and of the economics and ethics of pursuing different options.
2. Why do all the world’s countries say that a lot must be done about climate change, and then fail to do what is needed to achieve this goal? This is a positive question. Answering it requires an understanding of politics, international law, international relations, and game theory.
3. How can the world do better? This is a question of strategy. Answering this question requires all the tools listed above, especially game theory and history. All three questions lie at the heart of climate policy and diplomacy. By the end of this course, you will not only be able to answer these questions; together with other students, you will also have made a start in designing a more promising approach to limiting future climate change.
- Topics on: Policy
- Course
Most recently taught Fall 2025
Historically, the private sector (both financial markets and the corporate sector) were perceived to be either neutral bystanders on policy action or, more often, standing in the way of advancing climate-friendly policies. Over the past decade or so, as the concept of integrating sustainability factors into decision-making became mainstream, the private sector developed a narrative around voluntary action and climate leadership – “doing well by doing good… Win-win-win!”
However, it has become increasingly clear that voluntary action is either insufficient or worse, a way to delay, distract and derail policy action. Greenwashing scandals, political pressures in the US, as well as improving research around lobbying against climate policies by corporates that claimed to support such, underscored that when faced with a choice between doing well and doing good, doing well usually wins.
This does not imply that the private sector cannot do well by doing some good — improved brand equity and strong stakeholder relationships are key to ensuring long term financial sustainability. It does imply, however, that we need policy action to protect the public interest and that the private sector actors cannot be leaders without playing a constructive, positive role, or at least not get in the way. Identifying opportunities for capital markets actors to lead on policy action is the core thesis of this course.
- Topics on: ESG, Policy, Reporting and Measurement
- Course
Most recently taught Fall 2025
This is a course to build up the foundation for multidisciplinary research on energy harvesting (solar, wind, heat, vibration, and wave), ranging from small to large energy scales. The topics include: Criterion of harvesting, identification of energy sources. Theory of vibrations of discrete and continuous system, random vibration, measurement and analysis. Motion mechanism design. Selection of materials for energy conversion, piezoelectric, electromagnetic, thermoelectric, photovoltaic, etc. Design and characterization, modeling and fabrication of vibration, motion, wind, wave, thermal gradient, and light energy harvesters; resonance phenomenon, power electronics and energy storage and management. Case studies for applications of industrial systems, surveillance, automobiles and the human body.
Pre-requisite: Graduate or senior undergraduate students
- Topics on: Energy, Engineering
- Course
Most recently taught Fall 2025
This course is designed to help students understand the climate tech and innovation ecosystem and employ practical ways to professionally engage in it. Climate tech and its diffusion are critical to decarbonizing our economy and represent an unprecedented economic opportunity. To realize the promise of a low-carbon economy, new practitioners must join the innovation ecosystem and drive it forward. This course prepares students to do so.
The course starts by framing what climate tech means (i.e., all technologies focused on mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and addressing the impacts of climate change) and how climate tech innovation will occur (i.e., as a complex process including co-evolution of technology, regulations, infrastructure, and consumer behavior). It then provides an overview of the innovation value chain including various stakeholders and avenues for professional involvement. It concludes by diving into sectors with innovation opportunities. Considerations of equity and just transition are covered throughout.
It is a full-semester on-campus elective course open to any SUMA student, or student across CU academic programs who is interested in climate entrepreneurship, investing, and technology innovation. The course includes 13 two-hour convenings, with interactive lectures, regular practitioner guests, class discussions, and assignment presentations. Students will get exposure to and think about the various career paths in the “innovation economy.” Students are assumed to have limited previous exposure to the startup venture building ecosystem or decarbonization pathways.
- Topics on: Technology
- Course
Most recently taught Spring 2025
This course covers the major steps in the investigation, assessment, and remediation of contaminated sites, including sustainable considerations. The course will introduce the student to the multidisciplinary aspects of environmental remediation, an important background for any environmental career, such as an environmental consultant, a corporate remediation manager or a government regulator. Management and remediation of contaminated sites is an important consideration in sustainable regional development, since failure to control contamination usually yields an everincreasing area of impact, with greater environmental and societal costs. Sustainable remediation in particular has received increased emphasis by the US EPA and is now a required component of remedy selection. Considerations for sustainable remediation, as well as sustainable environmental practices in environmental investigation, will be discussed throughout the course. Using US EPA Superfund guidance as a framework, the course will explore the major steps in identifying a site, establishing the degree of contamination, identifying the likely ecological and human receptors, and selecting and implementing a remedial action. The Superfund process has been extensively developed through more than 30 years of legislature and agency guidance, and now provides a robust approach for pollution assessment and remediation. Contaminated sites typically involve a broad spectrum of contaminants across at least two media, including soils, sediments, groundwater, surface water, and air. In this course we will examine the main steps involved in environmental investigation and remediation primarily from a technical perspective, although legal aspects will be incorporated at the major decision points in the process. In particular, the course will focus on the main environmental sampling and analytical techniques needed to conduct a remedial investigation, and cover some of the main remedial engineering considerations for the successful selection and implementation of a sustainable and resilient remedy. Students will be assigned one of several completed Superfund sites to track the application of the Superfund process to a real-world example as the class proceeds, providing a regular link between theory and application.
- Topics on: Resilence
- Course
Most recently taught Spring 2025
The importance of designing, building, and leading sustainable organizations is indisputable. Sustainability
encompasses not only the environmental footprint of an organization but also the way in which firms treat
workers and customers both within their firm and supply chain network. Understanding the role of operational
excellence and strategic supply chain management in achieving sustainability is critical for effective leadership.
This course examines a variety of approaches to designing sustainability into an organization’s operations and
how to measure and reduce a firm’s operational environmental impact. We also explore themes of risk,
accountability, and sustainability within global supply chains. What challenges do firms face in being socially
responsible when managing globally distributed supply chains? Three themes comprise this course: (1)
designing sustainable operations, (2) drivers and consequences of sustainability, and (3) global sourcing and
social responsibility.
- Topics on: Business, Impact, Supply Chain
- Course
Most recently taught Fall 2025
- Topics on: Science
- Course
Most recently taught Fall 2025
This is a calculus-based treatment of the physics of Earth’s climate and the mechanisms of anthropogenic climate change. By the end of this course, you will understand:
- The structure and characteristics of Earth’s climate;
- How the climate’s structure and characteristics are determined by solar radiation and rotating, stratified fluid dynamics;
- Why and how anthropogenic climate change is occurring, including the key uncertainties; and
- Some features and mechanisms of natural climate variability and extreme weather events.
This course is designed for undergraduate students seeking a quantitative, physics-based introduction to climate and climate change science. EESC V2100 (Climate Systems) is not a prerequisite, but can also be taken for credit if it is taken before this course. If you have taken V2100, you will see some material for the second time, though in a more quantitative manner. This course does not, however, cover much about biogeochemical cycles or paleoclimate; these topics are addressed the 3000-level, calculus-based counterpart course to this one, EESC 3031. This course focuses on the physics of the atmosphere and ocean.
- Topics on: Science
- Course
Most recently taught Fall 2025
Climate change is among the most important, and most daunting, challenges of our time. The problem is so immense – and the required solutions so transformative – that all segments of society will need to pitch in if we are to avoid the worst.
This course examines the role of states, cities, and other sub-nationals in crafting and implementing the policy, technical, and behavioral changes necessary to address the climate crisis. While action (or opposition) at the federal level tends to get the lion’s share of attention here in the United States, the reality is that cities, states, and other sub-nationals have an enormous, if not leading, role to play both here and across the globe. Indeed, one could argue that subnationals represent the front lines in the fight.
Substantively, our primary focus will be on the role of these actors in driving the necessary transition to clean energy, perhaps the key component in the overall effort to stave off the worst impacts of climate change. The energy sector is also fertile ground for state and city action since states and cities oversee power grids, establish building codes, and regulate electric and other utilities, among other relevant activities. Many of the issues and dynamics we will examine in the energy area also have direct application to other aspects of climate policy, including issues of climate justice. We will also explore the dynamics around adaptation and resilience measures, and the trade-offs between them and the broader effort to mitigate the effects of climate change.
The goal of the course is to get students to think more deeply about climate change and, in particular, the complex intersection of science, economics, and politics that makes policy in this area so interesting and, at the same time, so difficult. Students will need to think beyond declaring climate change a “crisis” that requires us to move to a clean economy “immediately”. They will also need to think practically. Subnational governments are generally resource constrained and possess limited jurisdiction. At the same time, they are the primary, if not only, entities suited to address any number of purely local responsibilities, such as local law enforcement, economic development, and public health matters. Engaging meaningfully on climate change risks diverting resources from these day-to-day priorities and introduces national (and global) dynamics into local politics.
Our emphasis, therefore, will be on tackling second-level issues such as what the mechanics of subnational action look like, where will the funding come from, what is the interplay between the energy transition on the one hand and economic growth and economic fairness, NIMBY-ism (even from supporters of climate action) on the other. Above all, we will focus on how to think about policy in this area in a way that takes account of the significant political overhang that permeates every aspect. Success in this course will require thinking about how specific action can be crafted and actually implemented in an efficient and effective way.
- Topics on: Justice, Policy
- Course
Most recently taught Fall 2025
This course teaches the fundamentals of urban hydrology from an engineering perspective, with a focus on stormwater and flood control. It will expose you to current events in hydrology while incorporating contemporary concepts such as climate change, cloudburst management, and green infrastructure.
The semester is divided into sections on hydrology, the principles for estimating runoff from rainfall and hydraulics as well as the principles for storing and conveying runoff to protect life and property. Emphasis is placed on skills and methods for approaching engineering problems from a practical perspective. You will learn to solve engineering problems by applying laws of conservation of mass and energy to both gravity-fed and pumped systems. Examples will include real-life projects that the instructor has worked on over the course of their career. This in-depth insight bridges the gap between classroom learning and industry practice, exposing you to the types of questions you might encounter on a Professional Engineer examination.
You will also learn the basics of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and rainfall-runoff modeling using EPA’s Storm Water Management Model (SWMM). For your final project, you will identify and recommend solutions for a flood control problem adapted from ongoing work at the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. By the end of the course, you will have the requisite technical background to design a storm sewer system. Students who take this course have gone on to careers in government, consulting, and other sectors of stormwater management, playing important roles in addressing one of the greatest challenges of our time.
To take this course, you must complete ENME E3161 Fluid Mechanics.
- Topics on: Engineering, Science
- Course
Most recently taught Spring 2026
The transition to a net-zero economy is of particular relevance to Emerging and Developing economies, which are both the most vulnerable to climate change and also the largest emitters of greenhouse gases. The transition is creating considerable challenges but also opening up significant opportunities: over $200 trillion of investments will be needed in order to ensure that global temperatures stay well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, with most to be invested in the infrastructure sector of emerging and developing economies. The class will explore the challenges of the transition to a low-carbon economy. It will examine the new mechanisms that are being put in place to channel finance toward the greening of emerging and developing countries. It will also discuss some of the challenges linked to financing adaptation and resilience.
- Topics on: Decarbonization, Energy, Net Zero, Net Zero Strategies, Resilence
- Course
Most recently taught Spring 2025
This seminar focuses on the law, research, and policy regarding the mitigation, adaptation, and prevention of (further) climate change – at the international, federal, state, and municipal levels. The seminar is structured in three parts: doctrinal law; research; and writing. It aims to be participatory, and your engagement in weekly discussions, as well as timely submissions of all assignments, is required. Given the complexity of the material covered, this is an interdisciplinary seminar. It begins with a philosophical and historical overview of the causes and effects of global climate change and the methods available to control and adapt to it. It covers legal ethics, as well as international and domestic public law. It gives a brief overview of the negotiation, implementation, and current status of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement. It then discusses how treaties are implemented in the United States. The focus will then turn to the U.S. Congress, the executive branch, and the courts, as well as regional, state, and municipal efforts. The Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Endangered Species Act will receive special attention, as will the authority of an administration to reverse prior policy. Finally, we will talk about various legal tools available to address climate change, including cap-and-trade schemes; carbon taxation; regulations; and litigation.
- Topics on: Policy
- Course
Most recently taught Spring 2026
- Topics on: Justice, Policy
- Course
Most recently taught Fall 2024
Climate change mitigation is the greatest global political challenge of our times. This course uses concepts drawn from the broader political science literature to analyze the recent history and possible future trajectories of interactions between international and domestic politics and climate change. It focuses on mitigation questions, and includes the international political economy of various relevant commercial sectors. It has no prerequisites, and no background knowledge is required. The course has two fundamental goals: to increase student understanding of the complexity of political issues and interests involved in global climate change problems, and to counter growing climate despair by suggesting realistic paths forward toward global net zero carbon emissions. Class lectures will leave significant time for student questions and discussion. There is also a required weekly discussion section, BC3005.
- Topics on: Mitigation, Net Zero, Net Zero Strategies