The aim of this course is to raise the awareness about the fundamentals of climate change, how it is impacting our societies and what solutions are proposed in the corporate and governmental institutions. It will prepare students for a more meaningful participation and contribution to the societal debates on these topics, and improve their evaluation capacity of information from media, scientific reports and papers. The course is structured in four modules: The first one introduces the scientific fundamentals of climate change studies starting with a view in the deep past how climate has always changed, and which factors were driving this, to the more recent past with the influence on human evolution, societies and cultural development. The present-day climate system will be introduced, with its main drivers, and the challenges of modeling it. The second one deals with the impact of climate change on our present-day world, the observed degradation of terrestrial and marine ecosystems, the challenges of the urban environment, and the unknown tipping points and feedback systems driving climate change. In the third and fourth modules society’s response to climate change will be addressed, both from the point of view of policies such as the drive for sustainability and zero carbon (energy transition), as well as the response of the corporate and governmental world to these challenges and the financial consequences and opportunities.