Energy transition and climate change

The Energy transition and global warming will present us with one of the biggest economic and social challenges in the coming decades.
With annually rising temperatures, melting polar ice caps, an increasing number of hurricanes and floods, the overwhelming evidence and consensus among climate scientists is that man-made climate change is real and happening right now. This poses a significant threat for global economies and people’s lives, in the form of potential major human displacements due to floods and draughts or just malnutrition and famine.
Given their current policies the parties to the Paris Climate Agreement (COP21), set in December 2015, are still far from being on track to meet their goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C.
Even so, some vital players, such as the USA, are intent on withdrawing from the agreement.
According to the study “Are companies resilient enough to climate change?“, published in 2017 by the global quality assurance and risk management company DNV GL, also companies are hardly responding to these changes.
It is questionable whether further global warming can be slowed down or even stopped completely under the given conditions. And it is unclear how a European or global solution to the problem can be found.
In our Young Professionals Seminar in Paris we are discussing relevant questions about the status quo of energy transition and climate change, measures of the EU, EU member states and companies, and how an a collision between trade and environmental
protection can be prevented, amongst others.
The seminar language will be English.