Over the next several decades, climate is going to become an increasingly significant part of every job function: finance functions that deal with risk and valuation, operations functions that have to accommodate greater unpredictability, strategy functions that will have to adapt to threats to existing business lines and see opportunities for new ones. Climate change will mandate new reporting and disclosure; will alter what product attributes customers care about; and will influence how leaders communicate within and outside their organizations. A siloed sustainability function will not be capable of responding to the threats that climate change (or opportunities that its mitigation) will present.

This course will teach students what they need to know to be climate-capable business leaders. Many people (not just MBA students) feel like they don't understand enough about climate change to know how to think well about it. The aim of this course is to teach students what they need to know in order to be literate in climate. This literacy means both an ability to understand the current public and policy discourse, and the tools necessary to continue to learn in the future.

Student don't need to have any prior experience or expertise in climate to take this course. This is meant to be a "one-and-done" course that is accessible to everyone. The major topics the course will cover include: Basics of climate science; Sources of greenhouse gas emissions and avenues for mitigation; Climate policy; Global climate negotiations; Opposition by vested interests; Climate justice and distributional impacts; Accounting, reporting, and data; and Investors and profit incentives.