Abstract

It is imperative that the technical societies and engineering schools develop and move forward with Global Climate Change Technology curricula that will meet the needs and requirements of the world's technical, scientific, and financial communities. Current programs at major institutions partially address global climate change education. However, unified accreditation standards including program descriptions, licensing and career requirements must be adopted as soon as possible. This paper will include examples of existing courses that feature projects on distributed renewable energy, carbon life cycle analysis, carbon management and Women's Pathways into Green Careers.

Technical Society Certificate Programs

The technical societies sponsoring this event are in a unique position to move forward with a Climate Change Technology Certification program. The collective membership including practitioners, educators and policy makers are the best qualified individuals to develop broad-based education programs that will be acceptable to all parties involved in climate change mitigation and adaptation. The certifications will be accepted as proof of competence in the same manner as the ASME Boiler Code, LEED certification, among others. In addition, professional engineering mandatory continuing education may accept the certifications as well as architects and health professionals.

Since the future leadership in the education and training of Climate Change Technology practitioners must come from the assembled societies at this meeting, it is very important that we begin to set standards and requirements via the technical societies.

Introduction

The ability to meet growing global demand for practitioners in carbon management and climate change technology is dependent on the technical leadership, mentoring and training received by the students from countries in need of technology transfer to meet their adaptation and mitigation goals. Several current programs at New York Institute of Technology, including a Master of Science in Environmental Technology and a Master of Science in Energy Management and a future Ph.D. program in Global Climate Change Technology supplemented by continuing education coursework that attempt to meet the growing needs in carbon management and climate change technology.

This paper will also address the need to update traditional engineering-oriented programs by including global climate change technology coursework such as the proposed Global Climate Change Technology advanced certificate program at New York Institute of Technology. The following proposed courses will collectively complement the existing Master of Science in Environmental Technology and Master of Science in Energy Management programs at the institution:

  • Climate Change Technology,

  • Global Carbon Management and Clean Development Mechanisms,

  • Global Climate Change Policy Analysis,

  • Climate Change Impact on Land and Water Management,

  • Public Health & Climate Change,

  • Climate Science, course descriptions can be found in the appendix.

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