Major Courses and Plans of Study
With the energy and environment concentration, you will choose from a range of core courses tailored to you interests as well as taking a set of required degree courses. Explore a few of the concentration courses below, or download a full plan of study for the concentration as part of the MPA or MID program.
- PIA 2502 - Environmental Policy: Local & Global
This course explores the ways in which policy can protect people from environmental and health harms, on local and global scales, and the factors that cause such policy to succeed or fail. We discuss a variety of environmental challenges (e.g., stratospheric ozone depletion, e-waste management, plastic pollution, waste exports); attempted solutions with varying success (e.g., the Montreal Protocol and current efforts to draft an international plastics treaty); and the roots of these problems and barriers to solutions. Environmental issues are often borne from governance structures that enable the undervaluation of sustainable practices and their benefits while externalizing pollution costs. We explore how policies can change this, especially by making companies internalize their pollution costs, and how citizens' oversight of regulatory agencies, including NGO-led litigation, can lead to better policy and protections.
- PIA 2522 - Climate Policy: Local & Global
We examine strategies at the local, national and international level to address the climate emergency and to transition to more sustainable and equitable economies. These include mandating climate risks disclosure for financial institutions, climate litigation to hold governments and fossil companies to account and the declining costs and technology advancement for greater deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency. We discuss how to advocate for shifting taxpayers' funds from fossil fuels to renewable energy and for the just transition of fossil fuel reliant communities and how to counter climate misinformation and false solutions.
- PIA 2553 - Global Health Policy
The Sustainable Development Goals prioritize investments in human health. We study policy instruments to support the innovation, access, and affordability of medicines and vaccines in developed and developing countries. These include pull mechanisms (e.g., advanced purchase commitments), push mechanisms (government funding for R&D), and public-private partnerships. We explore the national and international responses to COVID-19 to understand the need for and barriers to global pandemic preparedness. We explore how World Trade Organization provisions and bilateral agreements between US/EU and developing countries balance (or fail to) medical innovation with access and affordability to these innovations. We delve into policies to address the public health impacts of industrial agriculture that accelerates antibiotic resistance. We examine how international cooperation has assisted or hindered responses to existing challenges (e.g., addressing maternal/child mortality, AIDs, malaria, neglected tropical diseases, diarrheal diseases). Finally, we consider the global health challenges resulting from the climate emergency.
