Climate Policy
Columbia Business School Spring 2026 A-term course

Columbia Business School Spring 2026 A-term course
Columbia Business School Summer 2025 A-term course
Financial Times business school teaching case study
Conversation with Chris Levesque, CEO of TerraPower
During Columbia Business School’s Earth Week, Professors David Schizer and Gernot Wagner explored how climate and national security priorities can accelerate the transition to clean energy.
Columbia SIPA
Financial Times business school teaching case study
Although US President-elect Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans give climate advocates plenty to worry about, all hope is not lost. Clean-energy technologies still have decisive physical advantages over the alternatives, and economic common sense will eventually win out.
On climate and especially environmental policy, the return of Donald Trump to the White House is clearly bad news. But the outlook is uncertain, because Trump has sent mixed signals about the kinds of policy changes he might pursue, and it remains to be seen what effect he can have on broader technological and market trends.
by Ajit Niranjan
Economists have long insisted that the only way to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases rapidly and at scale is to put a price on them. But while that is true, the key to a successful, politically sustainable climate policy is to ensure that the benefits precede the costs.
Columbia Business School Reunion
Conversation with Shiva Rajgopal and Aniket Shah
Even if Donald Trump defeats President Joe Biden and tries to take a wrecking ball to US climate and environmental policies, he ultimately would be powerless to derail the inevitable renewables revolution that is gaining momentum worldwide. His anti-climate agenda would be another wall that never gets built.
Given that this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference was hosted by a petrostate and led by a fossil-fuel CEO, climate campaigners understandably had low expectations. Yet the summit did deliver some new commitments, and there is good reason to think that they are more than just empty words.
by Matthew J. Kotchen, James A. Rising, and Gernot Wagner
Conversation with Timothy Puko
To think that technology will save us from climate change is to invite riskier behavior, or moral hazard. Whether a climate technology creates new problems has little to do with the solution, and everything to do with us.