(Public Policy: Governing the Global Climate.) In this seminar, students investigate the politics and policy making of on-going efforts to establish and manage a system of global climate governance. The emission of greenhouse gases associated with industrialization has steadily increased global temperatures over the past 150 years. If emissions are not reduced dramatically over the next decade or so, climate scientists have concluded that the environment will experience major and irreversible damage that threatens life on earth as we know it. For decades, countries and other international actors have been striving to build a governance system for the global climate, one that allows for the adaptation to climate change and the mitigation of its effects - and that urgently steers the world toward a post-carbon, renewable energy future. Students use concepts and models drawn from the academic disciplines of political science, economics, and public policy to study the polycentric system of global climate governance that has emerged since the late 1980s. As a major contributor to climate change and a leading global actor, the United States has a critical role to play in determining the development and effectiveness of global climate governance. Consequently, students also study how American domestic politics has shaped the United States' climate policy at home and abroad