Climate Resilience Certificate for Professionals

The impacts from a changing climate are visible and increasing. Build your skills, knowledge, and networks to take effective action. The Climate Resilience Certificate prepares professionals to incorporate resilience strategies into planning, implementation, and evaluation within any domain of resource management, community engagement, and environmental protection.

This certificate is offered by AU New England.

Overview: What will you learn?

Flexible Learning

This 9-credit certificate is designed to meet the needs of busy, working professionals.

• Courses are taught online so you may complete weekly assignments on your own schedule.
• You can start the program in any semester – Spring, Summer, or Fall.
• The 1-credit courses can be taken in any order.
• The certificate may be completed on a part-time basis.
• Complete a capstone project of your choice. The capstone could be directly relevant to your agency, community, business, or organization.

Learning Objectives

After successfully completing this certificate, you will be able to:

• Clearly communicate an understanding of current approaches to both mitigation and adaptation, at various scales of implementation.
• Effectively demonstrate an understanding of the interrelation between climate change, water, food, and energy security.
• Provide evidence of the ability to structure a vulnerability analysis.
• Articulate preferred adaptation strategies for identified vulnerabilities.
• Demonstrate how to judge the effectiveness of a message generated by either the scientific community or the media that targets decision-makers and the public about the risks associated with climate change.
• Analyze the effectiveness of a stakeholder engagement process designed to have decision-makers respond to a specific vulnerability.

The Climate Resilience Certificate is geared toward individuals working on the ground in resource management, hazard mitigation, community planning, business, and organizational operations, as well as other professionals seeking to strengthen their knowledge of “how-to” implement climate resilience.

At the conclusion of the certificate, participants will leave with specific knowledge and hands-on strategies to implement in their job and their communities.

Degree Requirements

Program Length:

This graduate certificate requires at least nine (9) credits to complete. This certificate can be completed in two to three semesters (less than a year). Complete it in a longer period of time with a schedule that works for you. Each four-week course is designed to stand alone, and so you may take courses in any order. These online courses can be completed in approximately 8 hours per week.

Required Courses (7 Semester Credits):

• ESC 5725: Earth Systems and Climate Change:1 (1 credit, 4 weeks
  online) **
• ES-5820: Climate Impacts: Vulnerability and Adaptation Planning (1 credit,
  4 weeks online)
• ES-5830: Climate Impacts: Communication, Facilitation, and Stakeholder
  Capacity Building (1 credit, 4 weeks online)
• ES-5860: Climate Justice and Equitable Adaptation (1 credit, 4 weeks
  online)
• ES-6995: Climate Resilience Capstone (3-credits, for an outside
  organization/community)

**If you have already taken, or plan to take either ESC 5720 Earth Systems and Climate Change (3-credits) or ES 703 Global Environmental Change (3-credits) as an elective, then that course can be substituted for this particular degree requirement.

Elective Courses (2 Semester Credits):

Choose 2 from the following list

• ES-5850: Climate Response: Costs and Financing
• ESP-5100: Policy Advocacy: Climate Change
• ES-5840: Business Resilience and Continuity

Admissions / Cost

Want to try one course? Enroll here

NOTE: We are currently seeking approval for this certificate to be eligible for federal student loans; please check with Financial Aid for updates.