Do electric vehicle tax incentives result in lower carbon emissions or employment stability in the auto sector? How can the transition to clean, sustainable energy be best managed? How can governments best direct their resources to enforcing anti-deforestation laws? These are just some of the research questions economics researchers at the University of Toronto are exploring as urgent global attention focuses on climate change.

Starting in their first year, undergraduate students enrolled in ECO199 can start exploring the trade offs between economic development and environmental degradation at the local level, as seen through soil degradation and deforestation, and at the global level through climate change, and examine the policies meant to address them. More senior undergraduates can access ECO313, Environmental Economics and Policies, and ECO314, Energy and the Environment, where they learn to incorporate aspects of climate economics, energy economics, urban economics, behavioural economics and other areas of the field into their work. [Read more…]