Designing Climate-Neutral Buildings and Transport

This course is designed for the next generation of policy makers, sustainability consultants or professionals and students from other fields who want to introduce themselves to climate change mitigation strategies in the building and transport sectors and apply them to their projects. This course covers a wide variety of topics in the building and transportation domains, with the focus on the importance of designing climate friendly systems. Specifically: Buildings– you will learn about trends in energy use and CO2 emissions that result from heating and cooling buildings, cooking and the use of electricity for appliances and lighting. You will be able to compare various alternatives to limit GHG emissions from buildings and quantify their impact. Transportation – you will gain knowledge of decarbonization efforts carried out in various sub-sectors of transportation (including freight, aviation and passenger transport). You will learn about trends, fuel alternatives such as electrification and hydrogen applications, examine energy intensity and calculate GHG produced by transport. Additionally, you will have the chance to evaluate different transportation modes and their impact on climate. In addition to the lectures, the course also includes interviews with experts and various exercises that will demonstrate how to practice what you have learnt and explore GHG emissions through real life examples. Enriched by relevant readings and discussion forums, this course will let you dive deeper into specific areas of interest you might have and further facilitate your learning experience. Course material and exercises will be complemented by relevant content about policy, through which you will also discover current measures taken by governments world-wide. 3b:T

• Understand the big picture of how buildings contribute to global GHG emissions and differences between climate zones.
• Analyze the contribution of heating, cooling, cooking, and use of electrical appliances to greenhouse gas emissions and examine options to mitigate CO2 emissions from these activities.
• Perform basic calculations on GHG emissions relating to different activities in buildings.
• Consider how policies affect GHG emission in buildings.
• Discuss the transport sector and its contribution to GHG emissions.
• Calculate GHG emissions relating to different modes of transport and fuels.
• Discover the efficiency and potential of alternate fuels and a variety of measures needed to decarbonize transport.

• Basic math and physics at a high school level.