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Driving Systems Change

Implement enduring climate solutions by leveraging frameworks and insights from behavioral science, communications, education, policy, and economics.

Course Information

Estimated: 2 weeks, 3-5 hours per week
Part of a Program

About this Course

Climate and energy solutions exist in an interrelated socioeconomic fabric. In this course, experts from social science fields examine the social, political, and economic dynamics of climate solutions, highlighting ways to create change across multiple dimensions. You’ll learn how to communicate about climate in a way that debunks misinformation and accelerates action and how to utilize political and economic incentives to create lasting systemic change.

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What you'll learn

  • Learn communication, education, and engagement strategies that are essential to action.
  • Apply strategies for behavior change at scale.
  • Explore the relationships between economics, policy, and climate and energy challenges and solutions.
  • Assess the effectiveness of different types of interventions to different political and economic contexts.

Modules

This course has 2 modules

  • Strategies for Understanding: Climate and Energy Narrative Hacks and Hurdles

  • Economics and Policy

How you'll learn

  • Real-World Learning

    Learn from MIT faculty and experts who ground their teaching in real-world cases rather than mathematical models, making the material approachable for all.

  • Practical Application

    Apply your new knowledge with hands-on, practical exercises drawn from healthcare, sports, finance, sustainability, and more.

  • AI-Enabled Support

    Deepen your understanding of the course material and get help on assignments from AskTIM, the AI assistant built by MIT researchers.

  • Stackable Credentials

    Earn an MIT Open Learning certificate at each milestone—module, course, and program—demonstrating your AI expertise. Available in paid courses only.

Prerequisites

The program is designed for non-technical professionals and is grounded in real-world case studies and practical applications. No experience with climate science or electrical engineering is required.

Meet your instructors

Namrata Kala

Associate Professor of Management; Associate Professor in Applied Economics, MIT Sloan School of Management

Namrata Kala is the Digital Equipment Corp. Associate Professor of Management and an Associate Professor in Applied Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. She is an economist with research interests in environmental and development economics. Her current research projects include studying how firms and households learn about and adapt to environmental change and regulation, the returns to environmental technologies, and the returns to worker training and incentives. From fall 2015 to 2017, Namrata was a Prize Fellow in Economics, History, and Politics at Harvard University and a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She received her PhD in environmental economics from the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale. She also holds a BA (Honors) in economics from Delhi University, and an MA in international and development economics from Yale University. (source)