Climate change degree programs proliferate

Driving the news: The University of Chicago announced Wednesday it is creating the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth, which will offer undergraduate and graduate degrees.

• The institute plans to hire 20 new faculty members during the next five years, with searches taking place in areas from law to materials engineering and AI.
• As part of the institute, the university is rolling out a new core curriculum on sustainable development and growth.

The big picture: Michael Greenstone, an economics professor, will serve as the institution's founding faculty director. He told Axios that what sets the new program apart from others around the country is its grounding in sustainable growth.

• "The animating principle is how societies around the world can find a balance between the needs for addressing climate and the needs for growth," Greenstone said.
• The program also seeks to develop scalable clean energy technologies, including via long-duration energy storage breakthroughs. The university administers the Department of Energy's Argonne National Lab in Illinois.
• Other schools with climate-specific programs include Stanford University and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego.

The intrigue: The new program stands out from others in the U.S. in that it has a specific focus on "climate systems engineering," which includes researching geoengineering.

• David Keith, a prominent geoengineering researcher, will lead this effort.
• Greenstone said, however, that the climate engineering component doesn't solely focus on geoengineering as a means to artificially lessen the severity of human-caused climate change.
• "It's meant to cover a range of technologies that help us adjust to what's already been done," Greenstone said, referring to the greenhouse gas emissions to date.

He said this research would encompass everything from carbon removal technologies to solar radiation management.

• "My own view is that it's academic malpractice that universities have not taken this on to study," he said. "What universities can do is help understand what the technical and social and governing risks are for those kinds of technologies."

Between the lines: This take on geoengineering — that it needs to be more fully studied given the thorny ethical and governance implications — lines up with the prevailing view within the relatively small geoengineering community.

• Studies have pointed to the urgent need to research the possible ripple effects of potential geoengineering techniques.
• As the devastating consequences from the nearly 1.3°C (2.34°F) of global warming to date become increasingly apparent, more calls have been made to conduct geoengineering experiments.

Zoom out: The University of Chicago is only the latest to roll out specialized offerings on climate change, in response to both professional and student demands.

• In 2020, Columbia University created the Columbia Climate School, which houses its master's program in Climate and Society. Now the school, which contains a mix of preexisting and new faculty and programs, is launching a two-year Master of Science in Climate.
• On Thursday morning, Columbia announced a new dual graduate degree with the university's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation on climate change and the built environment.

MIT and other schools have increased their research efforts and offerings on climate and sustainability in recent years as well.

What they're saying: Interim Columbia Climate School dean Jeffrey Shaman told Axios he sees tackling climate mitigation and adaptation as a growing need within higher education.

• "I think you're going to see more and more of these cropping up," he said.