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
Campus Climate Action
MIT’s role as a global leader in sustainability is strengthened by its commitment to be a test bed for decarbonization strategies and technologies.
Campus Emissions 0
MIT’s goal for direct campus emissions by 2050
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.
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More about climate change from MIT
News
How cities are weathering the climate crisis
In a new book, Lawrence Vale spotlights projects from around the globe that help insulate communities from climate shocks.
Toward sustainable decarbonization of aviation in Latin America
Special report describes targets for advancing technologically feasible and economically viable strategies.
The multifaceted challenge of powering AI
Providing electricity to power-hungry data centers is stressing grids, raising prices for consumers, and slowing the transition to clean energy.
For clean ammonia, MIT engineers propose going underground
Using the Earth itself as a chemical reactor could reduce the need for fossil-fuel-powered chemical plants.
Q&A: The climate impact of generative AI
As the use of generative AI continues to grow, Lincoln Laboratory's Vijay Gadepally describes what researchers and consumers do to help mitigate its environmental impact.
Study shows how households can cut energy costs
An experiment in Amsterdam suggests providing better information to people can help move them out of “energy poverty.”
Designing tiny filters to solve big problems
By developing new materials for separating a mixture’s components, Zachary Smith hopes to reduce costs and environmental impact across many U.S. industries.
Q&A: Examining American attitudes on global climate policies
Professor Evan Lieberman describes new research in which he and colleagues find a sharp partisan divide over providing aid to poor nations.
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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MIT Solve
MIT Solve's climate work selects and supports exceptional and diverse tech solutions from anywhere in the world that reduce emissions at scale or help communities adapt while reducing inequities and vulnerabilities.
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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
Financial Times
Financial Times reporter Seb Murray spotlights the MIT Climate Pathways Project, noting that the effort blends “expertise across disciplines to use interactive simulations that help business leaders craft smarter climate policies.” Murray also highlights Sloan Research Scientist Florian Berg’s work aimed at addressing inconsistencies in ESG ratings.
Newsweek
Graduate student Shomik Verma writes for Newsweek that “we need systemic change to ensure our individual climate actions aren't going to waste. If you're serious about fighting climate change this year, instead of recycling more, consider shifting focus to policy support and investments.” Verma adds: “if we advocate for change at the federal and state level, we can build an effective bridge between our individual actions and the change we want to see in the world.”
NHK
In a wide-ranging interview with NHK (broadcast in Japanese), President Sally Kornbluth discusses MIT’s innovation ecosystem, the MIT Climate Project and how MIT faculty work to help nurture their students’ creativity. "We give students the opportunity to research real-world projects and see their impact on society," says Kornbluth. “We should focus on bringing out the creativity of students, their individual creativity. Almost everyone you meet at a place like MIT wants to start a company. Nurturing this kind of talent is essential in the long run to the incredible success we see at American universities.”
ABC News
Prof. Jessika Trancik speaks with ABC News reporter Julia Jacobo about the role of green hydrogen in decarbonization efforts. “Hydrogen itself could be a really important component to a green transition,” says Trancik.
The Wall Street Journal
Wall Street Journal reporter John Anderson spotlights NOVA’s “Building Stuff: Change It!” – a program that follows engineers, including Prof. Maria Yang, as they “seek to help humanity adapt to a changing world, drawing on the ideas and traditions of the past to create new technologies.” When discussing efforts to adapt to climate change, Yang explains: “All design is redesign.”
WBUR
Inspired by his daily walks, Prof. Elfatih Eltahir and his colleagues have developed a new way to measure how climate change is likely to impact the number of days when it is comfortable to be outdoors, reports Maddie Browning for WBUR. “I find people walking, jogging, cycling and enjoying the outdoors,” says Eltahir. “That's what motivated me to start looking at how climate change could really constrain some of those activities.”
Knowable Magazine
Research Scientist Susan Amrose speaks with Knowable Magazine reporter Lele Nargi about the use of inland desalination for farming communities. Amrose, who studies inland desalination in the Middle East and North Africa, is “testing a system that uses electrodialysis instead of reverse osmosis,” explains Nargi. “This sends a steady surge of voltage across water to pull salt ions through an alternating stack of positively charged and negatively charged membranes.”
GBH
Prof. Christopher Reinhart speaks with GBH reporter Craig LeMoult about the feasibility of harvesting energy from the Charles River. Reinhart notes that using renewable heat pumps along with the old, existing steam infrastructure could be a good option for Boston and other cities around the country that have district energy systems. “I think you would see a lot of those, especially with the overall push towards decarbonization,” says Reinhart.