The Master of Science in Energy Policy and Climate will prepare the next generation of interdisciplinary professionals to address the imposing challenges posed by climate change for human institutions and ecosystems and the potentially transformative role of sustainable energy systems. Students develop a firm grasp of climate change science and the potential impacts of climate change in this century and beyond.

Extreme weather events are increasing in both intensity and frequency across the globe, many of an unprecedented severity. Advances in recent scientific understanding over the past decade confirm that such extreme events are attributable to global warming and would be statistically impossible without anthropogenic climate change.

Climate change presents a risk to the global economy and consequently the finance sector. However, it also presents an opportunity for innovative financing to increase the economic and social resilience to climate impacts. As facilitators of the economy, financial institutions have a central role in the transformation to low carbon and climate-resilient development. Their responsibility is twofold: greening their portfolios towards Paris compatible financing and investments, and reflecting and integrating climate-related risks into their risk management processes. This gradual process involves harmonizing short-term business cycles and investment horizons with systemic and long-term thinking by all actors from the financial sector (e.g. banks, asset managers, insurers, pension funds, investment consultants, regulators, rating agencies). This process is supported by public actors who moderate the structural change required for a transition to climate-resilient economies. This course provides the basics of finance and investment for assessing the financial viability of investments in adaptation projects. It clusters business models to provide an understanding of the parameters according to the project scale and, for example, revenue models, ownership structure, and value proposition, and will link to the financing perspective. Different investors and intermediaries have very different investment strategies, levels of risk appetite, return expectations, and investment horizons. Crowding in the right investor for a project is essential to ensure their long-term involvement and the required scale-up of investment volumes.

This Master's Degree in Disaster Risk Management and Climate Governance has been designed to provide professionals from different disciplines with the necessary knowledge and skills for applied research and for the management of means and tools that can be used in the fields of Disaster Risk Management and climate governance.

We live in uncertain times. The favorable climate that humanity has known is rapidly changing, with far-reaching implications for human behavior and health. It’s increasingly critical to build preparedness for direct – and indirect – climate impacts and to welcome uncertainty into the design process. How do we explore and imagine possible pathways to increase our resilience and capacity to adapt? This workshop will explore these questions and help build an understanding of the trajectories, impacts, and influences of climate change.