- Online
- $1,950
The UBC Micro-certificate in Climate Action Planning: Foundations, Finance and Implementation is a part-time program that helps policy makers, planners and industry players gain the knowledge, skills and tools to put climate action planning into practice within organizations and communities.
Developed by a team of faculty and experts associated with UBC’s Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, Sustainability Hub and Campus and Community Planning, this program is designed to create the climate champions that Canada and the world need.
Course outline
There are three main thematic areas covered in the micro-certificate program.
- The Science and Action of Climate Change (4 weeks, 20 hours)
- Climate Change and the Economy: Where is the money? (4 weeks, 20 hours)
- Sector-specific Climate Actions: Critical Components (2 weeks, 10 hours)
Week 1: Why Climate Action?
Gain an understanding of the CAP Program objectives, expectations, and assessment. Gain the knowledge to justify the importance of developing and implementing a climate action plan for your community, municipality, or organization.
Week 2: Causes and Consequences of Climate Change
Learn the basic science of climate change, thresholds, and possible future scenarios. Identify what impacts of climate change look like, both globally and in your community. Develop an understanding of the imperatives of climate justice and key considerations for integrating a climate justice perspective in your climate action planning.
Week 3: Adaptation and Mitigation
Explore ways in which society might adapt to climate change and actions being taken by communities to adapt to climate impacts. Develop an understanding of actions to mitigate climate change, specifically reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and common ways to approach this in local climate planning. Dive into scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions and GHG Inventories, how they are assessed, and their utility. Learn about aligning benefits between adaptation and mitigation.
Week 4: Key Elements of Climate Action Planning
Deepen your understanding of the main international agreements and processes governing climate change at the global level and make the link to local climate action planning. Explore the key components of a good climate action plan. Evaluate key elements of successful climate action plans through case studies that include best practices for reducing emissions, adapting to the impacts of climate change, and ethical engagement with Indigenous Nations. Develop the scope of your climate action plan and identify collaborators, rationale, risks, motivators and catalysts to drive change.
Week 5: Climate Action Planning: Understanding mitigation opportunities
Gain familiarity with emissions methodologies and key terms. Demonstrate the ability to identify and assess the magnitude of greenhouse gas emissions within each scope (Scope 1, 2, and 3). Learn actions to reduce emissions related to each scope. Explore systems approaches to GHG mitigation. Delve into the limits of electrification, including the difficulty of procuring new grid-connectable supply.
Week 6: Combining Climate Resiliency and Mitigation - Assessing Design Options for Climate-Exposed Infrastructure
Explore potential hazards to buildings and industry infrastructure. Identify potential opportunities by working through case studies. Develop the capability to utilize tools for the creation of climate projections. Gain proficiency in using data to evaluate the exposure and vulnerabilities of infrastructure to climate change impacts.
Week 7: Costing Methods
Gain the ability to assess the total financial impact of infrastructure projects over their entire lifecycle, including initial costs and ongoing maintenance. Develop expertise in cost estimation for climate action projects over their entire lifecycle. Evaluate cost analysis methodologies to determine the total lifecycle cost of infrastructure projects. Learn about diverse funding sources for climate action planning and determine how to leverage these sources to support climate initiatives effectively.
Week 8: Understanding the Limits of Climate Action Business Cases
Critically evaluate the limitations of conventional financial metrics for building climate action business cases. Identify alternative approaches that can strengthen these cases while identifying mutual co-benefits across an organization. Develop a comprehensive approach to climate action planning that integrates energy efficiency and distributed energy resources alongside fuel switching strategies.
Week 9: Implementation: The Case of Climate Action Planning at UBC
Discover the essential steps in scoping UBC's climate action plan. Understand the significance of conducting an emissions inventory to pinpoint strategic areas for impactful action. Identify key drivers for addressing climate action at UBC, including financial, regulatory, policy, reputational, and infrastructure factors.
Week 10: Implementation
Participants will be able to take the concepts and knowledge of the previous sections and see how they are applied to the formulation of a climate action plan. Gain insight into crafting a Climate Action engagement plan to involve stakeholders in emission reduction measures and garner support for implementation. Recognize the importance of monitoring and reporting to assess the effectiveness of implemented actions. Learn the essentials of developing a business case to justify major investments in climate action.
Technology requirements
To take this course, and for the best experience, we recommend you have access to:
- an email account
- a computer, laptop or tablet
- the latest version of a web browser (or previous major version release)
- a reliable internet connection a video camera and microphone.
Course format
These courses are 100% online and instructor supported with real-time classes. One business day before the course start date, we’ll email you step-by-step instructions for accessing your course.
Please see “Available Sessions” for live session details.