Overview

West Africa’s high vulnerability to climate change is exacerbated by endemic poverty, economic and institutional weakness, and limited access to infrastructure, technology and energy. For its ongoing development, the region needs more energy despite its vulnerability to changing climate. More than 80% of energy consumed world-wide derives from fossil fuels, a finite resource unevenly distributed beneath the Earth‘s surface. Reserves of fossil fuels are progressively decreasing and their continued use produces harmful pollutants and greenhouse gases associated with global warming and climate change. But energy is a basic necessity for human activity and economic and social development. Thus, one challenge for West Africa is to develop strategies reconciling rising energy demand with sustainable resource management.

Objectives

The main objective of this Doctoral programme is to train a new generation of interdisciplinary professionals capable of proposing adapted solutions to face the climate change and energy crisis.

Curriculum

The curriculum focuses on topics such as climate change and global warming, knowledge of the impacts of climate change, vulnerability of natural systems and the built environment, and methods for adaptation as well as energy production, delivery, and consumption for both, traditional systems and sustainable energy alternatives with special emphasis on energy efficiency, energy management and local available renewable energy.