Beginning in Fall 2025, undergraduates at the University of Chicago will have the opportunity to major, or minor, in Climate and Sustainable Growth. Using a 360-degree approach, the program provides students with a foundational grounding of the climate and growth challenge, a deep dive into a track of their choice, and experiential learning to widen their perspectives of the challenge. The major/minor will reside within the Physical Sciences Collegiate Division.
Join us for an information session on May 22 at 4pm in Saieh Hall, Room 021. To receive notice of additional information sessions, please sign up for our student newsletter here.
Note: The curriculum is still in development. This page may update to reflect changes. Learn more at: The College Catalog 2025-2026.
Foundational Courses
Fall 2025; Instructor: Michael Greenstone, Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics
The global energy and climate challenge is perhaps the most important problem society faces. It requires identifying approaches to ensure people have access to the inexpensive and reliable energy critical for human development, without causing disruptive climate change or unduly compromising health and the environment. The course pairs technical and economic analysis to develop an understanding of policy challenges in this area. Lecture topics will include the past, present, and future of energy supply and demand, global climate change, air pollution and its health consequences, selected energy technologies such as solar photovoltaics, nuclear power, unconventional oil and gas, and an analysis of theoretical and practical policy solutions in developed and emerging economies.
This course sets out the basic parameters of the problem and gives students an understanding of how the other required courses of the major fit together. All newly declared climate and energy majors must take this class together.
Winter 2026; Instructor: Noboru Nakamura, Professor in Geophysical Sciences, and B. B. Cael, Assistant Professor in Geophysical Sciences
This course covers the basics of the science of climate change, combining the materials covered in the courses Global Warming (PHSC 13400/13410) and Global Biogeochemical Cycles (GEO 23800). The idea behind this course is to give non-science students sufficient background on the science of climate change to be able to think intelligently about climate impacts, policies and so forth. This course may also consider solar radiation management as a tool for controlling some of the effects of climate change.
Students taking the science specialization within this major will have to take either GEOS 13300 The Atmosphere or GEOS 24220 Climate Foundations, and GEOS 23800/ENSC 23800 Global Biogeochemical Cycles. Students in other specializations can also substitute these courses for the new climate foundations course. If students take this course, they cannot take Global Warming for their general education requirement.
Winter 2026
This course covers relevant portions of introductory microeconomics and economic issues associated with climate change and energy using the problems of climate change and energy to illustrate basic economic concepts. It also introduces students to tools for mitigating emissions, such as taxes, subsidies, regulation, and quantity controls. As with the climate science course, this course requirement could be satisfied with one or more advanced economics courses.
Spring 2026; Instructor: Elisabeth Moyer, Associate Professor in Geophysical Sciences
The use of fossil fuel energy is central to modern economies and is also the central cause of climate change. Stopping climate change requires replacing the fossil fuel system with cleaner sources of energy. At the same time, many people in developing countries need new sources of energy to achieve the living standards of developed countries. This dual problem—replacing existing fossil fuel systems while simultaneously expanding access to energy—is the key reason climate change is such a hard problem.
This course helps students understand this problem, focusing on energy conversion technologies, such as fossils, wind, solar, nuclear, and hydro, and on energy systems, such as transmission, storage, and energy markets. This course may also cover carbon dioxide removal technologies
Fall 2025; Instructor: David Weisbach, Walter J. Blum Professor of Law
Climate change raises central issues of justice and morality. Some countries or places have emitted far more carbon dioxide than other countries or places. The most vulnerable places are often poor and have had relatively low emissions. In addition, because carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for centuries, decisions today affect people who will be alive in the distant future. This course will address issues of justice and climate change, exploring what obligations of people living in one country or time have to people living in other countries or times. We will ask what the resolution of those issues means for policies to address climate change. Students should be prepared to take all sides of these issues, including positions that they are deeply uncomfortable with.
Spring 2026; Instructor: Robert Gulotty, Associate Professor in Political Science
Solving the problem of climate change requires that greenhouse gas emissions be eliminated everywhere—a highly complex challenge. As a result, climate negotiations have been ongoing for more than 30 years, but they have had only limited success. This course addresses theoretical and empirical studies of agreements among nation states on environmental issues and domestic politics (within nation states) of environmental regulation—in other words, the political engineering of effective climate agreements. This course could include a legal component.
Instructor: Luís Bettencourt, Professor in Ecology and Evolution
Climate change would not be an important issue but for the impacts. Impacts are not only purely physical or biological, such as changes in weather patterns or sea level rise, but also depend on adaptation. For example, people will adjust their farming practices in response to changes in the climate, partially alleviating the impact. This course would study the impacts of climate change and possible adaptations people will make. The course will be designed around the use and presentation of data on impacts, focusing on the data produced by IPCC Working Group II.
Climate change is a global problem that will affect people around the world. In addition, many people in developing countries lack access to reliable sources of energy. To understand the problem of climate change, students need to be exposed to how people outside the United States are experiencing the problem.
This course will use the short September term to allow students to travel outside of the United States, such as to existing UChicago centers in Paris or Delhi, or possibly to other areas.
Tracks
Students in the Climate Science specialization must choose four courses from the following:
- GEOS 22060 What makes a planet habitable?
- GEOS 23205 Introductory Glaciology
- GEOS 23600/ENSC 23600 Chemical Oceanography
- GEOS 23900/ENSC 23900 Environmental Chemistry
- GEOS 24300 Paleoclimatology
- GEOS 29002/ENSC 29002 Field Course in Modern and Ancient Environments
- GEOS 24800 Climate Systems Engineering
- GEOS 24810 Removing Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere
- MENG 1XXXX. Energy Matters – From Mine to Line
- MENG 21100. Principles of Engineering Analysis I.
- MENG 25310 Energy Storage and Conversion Devices.
- MENG 25320. Electrochemical Principles and Methods.
Note: students should be aware that the MENG courses have substantial prerequisites. If you are counting on taking those courses to complete the major, make sure you check that you have taken the appropriate prerequisites.
The specialization is divided into three clusters, (i) economics, (ii) politics and law; and (iii) social impacts. Students are free to mix courses as they among the clusters. If a student is double majoring, they may wish to take all of their specialization courses from entirely one cluster, such as economics if that is their other major. Students must take four courses from the list below.
Economics Cluster
- PBPL 28633 Policy Evaluation
- PBPL 26930 Environmental Economics: Theory and Applications
- PPHA 39925 Energy Policy and Human Behavior
- PPHA 36925 Utilities and Electricity Markets: Regulation in the United States
- BUSN 20800 Big Data
Politics and Law Cluster
- CEGU 23100 Environmental Law
- CEGU 24102 Environmental Politics.
- CEGU 24701 U.S. Environmental Policy
- CEGU 24776 International Environmental Policy
- PLSC 23501 International Political Economy.
- PLSC 24203. International Environmental Politics.
Social Impacts Cluster
- PBPL 25704 Environmental Justice in Chicago
- CEGU 26260 Environmental Justice in Principle and Practice I
- CEGU 26261 Environmental Justice in Principle and Practice II
- PBPL 28728 Climate Change and Society: Human Impacts, Adaptation, and Policy Solutions
- PBPL 27818 Philosophical Foundations of Public Policy
- PLSC 22202 Philosophies of Environmentalism and Sustainability
- SSAD 29400 Climate Change and Human Mobility
- RETH 30702 Introduction to Environmental Ethics
- HIST The Industrial Revolution
Students in this specialization are required to take the following (totaling to four courses):
- One of
- BUSN 20400 Investments or 35000 Investments
- ECON 15010 Investments: From Economics to Finance
- BUSN 20410 Corporation Finance
- One of
- BUSN 20100 Financial Accounting
- BUSN 20101 Managerial Accounting
- Two of any of the following:
- BUSN 20330 Building the New Venture
- BUSN 20800 Big Data or BUSN 41201 Big Data
- BUSN 20920 Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation
- BUSN 30133 Navigating the ESG Landscape
- BUSN 34113 Impact Investing
- BUSN 35120 Portfolio Management
- BUSN 41000 Business Statistics
- BUSN 42129 The Political Economy of Climate Change
- BUSN 42708 Corporate Social Responsibility Social Impact Practicum
Capstone
Students must complete a capstone requirement, which they will typically take in their senior year. The capstone requirement consists of the Capstone Seminar and a capstone project. The Capstone Seminar guides students engaged in research design, data collection and analysis, and thesis writing and will be offered in the Autumn Quarter. To create cross-fertilization of ideas, as well as student community, the seminar will include students from all the specializations. The project continues through the spring quarter.
Students are permitted to pair this major with another major.
Students who choose to minor in the program must complete The Climate and Growth Challenge and Energy: Science, Technology, and Human Usage, along with four other foundational courses.
Experiential Learning: The September Term
After taking a set of foundational courses that explore the climate and growth challenge from all angles, students will take this toolkit of knowledge with them as they travel to several locations key to understanding global perspectives surrounding the climate and sustainable growth challenge. For example, they could see for themselves what it is like to live in rural India or sub-Saharan Africa with little reliable electricity, witness in real time the trade-offs of living in an energy producing community, understand the decisions made by capital allocators making energy investments, and more.