This course deals with the law and policy designed to mitigate climate change. The world is in a profound climate transformation and legislators worldwide seek different avenues to address this pressing issue while finding a balance between protecting nature and ensuring economic development.
In such a light and perhaps our generation¿s most important challenge, the course aims to give the student knowledge and understanding of the regulation and implementation of climate regulation and its implications for our society in international law, European law and some important national jurisdictions. Our class will sit at the intersection of several legal disciplines. International and European climate law will be combined with international trade law, sustainability and public international rules, to give the student a complete overview of this most important topic.
The course provides insight into basic principles for resource governance, sustainability and the relationship between public interests and business interests and the use of modern market instruments in climate governance.
The course¿ guiding question will be how regulation plays a role to create incentives and frameworks that deal with climate change and question whether the rules in place are well-designed and are sufficient to teach such aim.
Our course will first discuss the causes and effects of climate change and bring about an introduction behind the regulatory and policy schemes to control and limit it. This will be couple with a discussion of relevant principles of public international, environmental and sustainability law.
Of special importance to this class will be the role played by the leading international treaty on climate change: the Paris Agreement. The study of international rules will be combined with a through discussion of the EU and EEA initiatives: The EU Climate Change Law, the EU Green Deal, the "Fit for 55" 2021 Package, the EU Taxonomy, and Norwegian Climate Change instruments and policy.
Central to our course will be the way that carbon markets are organized, studying examples based on quota and taxation systems. Examples that will be discussed in class will be EU Emission trading system (EU-ETS), green certificate (Norway and Sweden), certificate of origins, etc. We will also study alternatives and jurisdictions in which climate change measures are not based on carbon/greenhouse markets, such as Australia.
Finally, climate change litigation and the role of courts in reviewing governmental policies, laws and the conduct of companies will also be studied.
Knowledge
The course will give the students a thorough understanding of the governance climate change and the interplay between climate regulation, economics and legal frameworks. Principles on environmental, public international and climate change law will be discussed. Students will learn the different regulatory and policy options available for governments and even private players to deal with climate change implications and seek to mitigate it.
In the course we will focus more specifically in:
Skills
Upon completion of the course, the student should be able to
Competence
The course will strengthen the student¿s understanding of different systems for governance and especially the use of market systems for influencing the behavior of legal actors
Three years of university studies
Good level of English
The course is available for the following students:
Note: The pre-requirements may still limit certain students' access to the course
The exam consists of two parts, each contributing 50 % to the final mark:
Home exam: during the course the students shall write a paper of maximum 2000 words on a subject provided by the course supervisor.
School exam: Four-hour digital examination.
Exam language:
Question paper: English
Answer paper: English
Support materials allowed during school exam
See section 3-5 of the
Special regulations about dictionaries
Spring. Exam only in semesters with teaching.
Resit of school exam in next semester only when home exam is passed.