47000-62 Proactive Environmental Studies I (2 credits)

Lecturer: Alexandros Gasparatos, Masahiro Sugiyama

Course Objectives and Learning Goals

Climate change and biodiversity loss are two of the most critical sustainability challenges facing humanity. Both can have major environmental and socioeconomic impacts, disrupting ecosystem functioning and human societies. As a result climate change mitigation and adaptation, and biodiversity conservation have emerged some of the major strategies and pathways to ensure global sustainability. Very different policy responses are designed and implemented globally to achieve these, usually orchestrated and influenced through multi-lateral environmental agreements (MEAs) such as the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) for climate change and the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The aim of this lecture series will be to identify some of the critical elements and aspects of the current debates on climate change and biodiversity loss, and the main narratives dominating research and policy domains. The course is divided into two major modules. Module A will focus on biodiversity loss and Module B on climate change.

Schedule

Module A

Convener: Alexandros Gasparatos, University of Tokyo

Lecture 1: Introduction on biodiversity loss

Lecture 2: Ecosystem services assessment

Lecture 3: Ecosystem services valuation 1

Lecture 4: Ecosystem services valuation 2

Lecture 5: Application for coastal-marine seascapes in Japan

Lecture 6: Application for agricultural landscapes in Africa 1

Lecture 7: Application for agricultural landscapes in Africa 2

Lecture 1 introduces the main concepts relevant to ecosystem services and the main international policy framework.

Lectures 2 introduce the main considerations when assessing ecosystem services, including the major observed trade-offs.

Lectures 3-4 introduces the main biophysical, economic and indicator-based tools for valuing ecosystem services. It delves in the implications of selecting a specific tool, and the considerations for analysis.

Lectures 5-7 put the main theoretical concepts introduced in the module and how they are utilized in real world contexts. This follows real projects in satoumi seascapes of Japan (Himeshima island) and agricultural landscapes in Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique and Swaziland specializing in the production of

biofuel feedstock (sugarcane, jatropha).

Module B

Convener: Masahiro “Masa” Sugiyama, University of Tokyo

Lecture 1: Introduction and overview of climate change

Lecture 2: Scientific basis of climate change

Lecture 3: Impacts of climate change (cont.)

Lecture 4: Mitigation of climate change and emerging issues (cont.)

Lecture 5: Student presentations and discussion

Lecture 6: Student presentations and discussion (cont.)

Lecture 1 gives an overview of climate change and main concepts.

Lecture 2 covers the mechanism, observed evidence, and future projections of climate change.

Lecture 3 reviews the impacts of climate change and adaptation options.

Lecture 4 discusses mitigation options of climate change and emerging issues such as climate engineering (geoengineering).

Lectures 5 and 6 are for student presentations (see below).