Filling a gap in climate change education and scholarship

Abstract

With few exceptions, universities and other educational institutions have yet to undertake the necessary innovations and transformations that will be needed to prepare a future workforce on the scale necessary to address the challenge of greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation in a way that instils public and policy-maker confidence. Irrespective of the form or timing of climate change policies, the foundation of policy design and implementation measures to address the root cause of climate change is reliable metrics on GHG emissions (and removals). There is currently minimal infrastructure in place to develop or support this workforce. I define GHG measurement and management, which also serves as the title of this journal, as the application of science, engineering and economic principles to improve the way in which society mitigates the anthropogenic causes of global climate change by developing and providing reliable performance metrics related to GHG emissions and removals, and managing activities intended to reduce emissions to, and/or increase removals from, the atmosphere. This journal's unique purpose, as part of the growing literature focused on climate change, is to help us expand this literature to include critical and unexplored questions of implementation.