MIT on
Climate Change
Number of MIT’s 1,080 faculty members working on projects to address climate change
Number of MIT’s five schools (and one college) whose faculty are working on questions related to climate change
Number of MIT OpenCourseWare courses on the topics of environment and sustainability
The Climate Project
Today I Learned: Climate podcast
Today I Learned: Climate (TILclimate) is MIT’s award-winning podcast that breaks down the science, technologies, and policies behind climate change, how it’s impacting us, and what we can do about it.
Climate Science, Risk and Solutions
This primer summarizes the most important evidence for human-caused climate change. It confronts the stickier questions about uncertainty in our projections, engages in a discussion of risk and risk management, and presents different options for taking action.
Featured MITx courses on climate change
Combining forces to advance ocean science
The combined strengths of MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) joint program provides research and educational opportunities for PhD students seeking to explore the marine world.
Looking for more videos?
More about climate change from MIT
News
Two MIT teams selected for NSF sustainable materials grants
Chosen from 16 finalist teams, the MIT-led projects will investigate quantum topological materials and sustainable microchip production.
Bringing an investigator’s eye to complex social challenges
MIT economics doctoral student Anna Russo studies how to improve the design, function, and outcomes of public policies.
MIT announces 2024 Bose Grants
The grants fund studies of green hydrogen production, fetal health-sensing fabric, basalt architecture, and shark-based ocean monitoring.
Featured video: Moooving the needle on methane
MIT researchers are developing a system for reducing emissions of the potent greenhouse gas at dairy farms and other sites.
Using deep learning to image the Earth’s planetary boundary layer
Lincoln Laboratory researchers are using AI to get a better picture of the atmospheric layer closest to Earth's surface. Their techniques could improve weather and drought prediction.
New major crosses disciplines to address climate change
Combining engineering, earth system science, and the social sciences, Course 1-12 prepares students to develop climate solutions.
Q&A: Claire Walsh on how J-PAL’s King Climate Action Initiative tackles the twin climate and poverty crises
Since 2020, K-CAI has innovated and tested climate policies in more than 35 countries and supported scale-ups that have reached over 15 million people.
A home where world-changing innovations take flight
The Engine Accelerator offers “tough tech” startups space, support, and a network to help them scale up.
Centers, Labs, and Programs
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Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)
Through J-PAL's King Climate Action Initiative, J-PAL innovates, tests, and scales high-impact solutions at the nexus of climate change and poverty alleviation with governments, NGOs, donors, and companies worldwide.
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Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS)
J-WAFS helps meet the needs of a rapidly changing planet by catalyzing research, innovation, and technology to improve access to safe and resilient supplies of water and food.
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Building Technology Program
The Building Technology Program includes students, faculty, and staff working on design concepts and technologies that contribute to a more humane and sustainable built world.
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Center for Energy and Environmental Policy (CEEPR)
CEEPR is a focal point for research on energy and environmental policy, and promotes rigorous, objective research for improved decision-making in government and the private sector.
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Center for Global Change Science (CGCS)
CGCS seeks to better understand natural mechanisms in the ocean, atmosphere, and land systems, and to apply that knowledge to predicting global environmental change.
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D-Lab
MIT D-Lab works with people around the world to develop and advance collaborative approaches and practical solutions to global poverty challenges.
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Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI)
ESI is MIT’s campus-wide effort to mobilize the substantial scientific, engineering, policy, and design capacity of our community to contribute to addressing climate change and other environmental challenges of global import.
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Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
The mission of this program is to advance a sustainable, prosperous world through actionable, scientific analysis of the complex interactions among interconnected global systems.
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MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium
MCSC is an academia-industry collaboration, working to accelerate the implementation of large-scale, real-world solutions to help meet global climate and sustainability challenges.
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MIT Climate Nucleus
The Climate Nucleus is a faculty committee that has broad responsibility for the management and implementation of Fast Forward: MIT’s Climate Action Plan for the Decade.
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MIT Climate Policy Center
The MIT Climate Policy Center serves as a non-partisan resource for policymakers who wish to advance evidence-based climate policy to help inform and support local, state, national, and international policymakers.
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MIT Climate Portal
The portal offers educational information about climate change directly from MIT experts.
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MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI)
MITEI connects researchers from across MIT and facilitates collaborations with industry, nonprofits, and government to speed and scale commercialization of no- and low-carbon technologies.
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MIT Sea Grant
MIT Sea Grant is one of 34 university-based Sea Grant programs, encouraging local coastal and ocean stewardship and building collaborative infrastructures with academic, industry, government, and non-governmental partners.
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MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative
This group works to be a leading voice in sustainable business and policy, with a mission to provide the best education and apply academic rigor to real-world problems.
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Office of Sustainability
The mission of the Office of Sustainability is to transform MIT into a replicable model—one that generates just, equitable, applicable, and scalable solutions for responding to the unprecedented challenges of a changing planet.
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Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC)
Scientists at the PSFC are working to harness fusion energy on Earth, with the goal of designing power plants that will emit zero carbon, are safe, and incredibly power-dense.
In the Media
Bloomberg
Researchers at MIT have developed a new measure called “outdoor days,” which describes the number of days per year in which temperatures are comfortable enough for outdoor activities in specific locations around the world, reports Lebawit Lily Girma for Bloomberg News. “Changes in the number of outdoor days will impact directly how people around the world feel climate change,” says Prof. Elfatih Eltahir.
GBH
Robert Stoner, interim director of the MIT Energy Initiative, speaks with Boston Public Radio hosts Jim Braude and Margery Eagan about how the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act provides funding hydrogen hubs around the country to create networks of hydrogen fuel producers. “We're going to use hydrogen as a substitute for natural gas. In order for that to happen, we have to get the cost way down,” Stoner explains.
Bloomberg
Prof. Esther Duflo will present her research on poverty reduction and her “proposal for a global minimum tax on billionaires and increased corporate levies to G-20 finance chiefs,” reports Andrew Rosati for Bloomberg. “The plan calls for redistributing the revenues to low- and middle-income nations to compensate for lives lost due to a warming planet,” writes Rosati. “It also adds to growing calls to raise taxes on the world’s wealthiest to help its most needy.”
The Boston Globe
Boston Globe reporter Jon Chesto spotlights how MIT President Sally Kornbluth is “determined to harness MIT’s considerable brainpower to tackle” climate change. During a clean-tech entrepreneurship event hosted by the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, Kornbluth highlighted the newly announced Climate Project at MIT, “which commits $75 million and dozens of faculty to solving some of the biggest climate problems.” Kornbluth also noted that MIT’s “culture of entrepreneurship” makes the Institute uniquely positioned to help address the challenges posed by climate change.
CNN
Researchers from MIT and elsewhere explored the effectiveness of climate commitments made by banks to mitigate the effects of climate change, reports Nicole Goodkind for CNN. “Our results cast doubt on the efficacy of voluntary climate commitments for reducing financed emissions, whether through divestment or engagement,” the researchers note.
The New York Times
Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have found that climate pledges made by banks to reduce carbon emissions and finance energy transitions may not be as effective as previously thought, reports Eshe Nelson for The New York Times. “The researchers found that since 2018 the banks had reduced lending 20 percent to sectors they had targeted in their climate goals, such as oil and gas and transport,” explains Nelson. “That seems like progress, but the researchers argued it was not sufficient because the decline was the same for banks that had not made the same commitment.”
Grist
Senior Lecturer John Parsons speaks with Grist reporter Gautama Mehta about the future of nuclear energy in the United States. “It’s also possible that nuclear, if we can do it, is a valuable contribution to the system, but we need to learn how to do it cheaper than we’ve done so far,” explains Parsons. “I would hate to throw away all the gains that we’ve learned from doing it.”
The Washington Post
Yuly Fuentes-Medel, program director for textiles in the MIT Fabric Innovation Hub, speaks with Washington Post reporter Daliah Singer about the need for a more sustainable shoe industry. “You don’t want to consider your shoe something you’re going to throw away, and that’s a long-term change,” says Fuentes-Medel. “It’s a mental model that needs to change for us to keep building all the products of the future.”