Climate Risk Assessment

This graduate-level course surveys the many components that go into climate risk assessment, with an emphasis on climate impacts and vulnerability.  We will survey the latest research on climate hazards, with an emphasis on the types of extreme weather events that have the largest societal impacts.  We will then explore these impacts in detail, by sector and system.  We will next investigate determinants of vulnerability, and how vulnerability magnifies climate impacts.  We then query how climate solutions can be integrated into risk assessments in a recursive manner. Throughout the course, we will strike a balance between foundational (‘IPCC-type’) examples on the one hand, and emerging topics like compound extreme events and existential risk on the other.  Throughout the course we will study and employ a number of risk assessment methodologies, based on case studies from within the private, public, and non-profit sectors.