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 an influx of salt may affect microbial ecosystems
As sea levels rise and saltwater seeps into freshwater, stressed aquatic populations may retain overall growth even as diversity declines, MIT scientists find.
For energy systems that power a reliable grid, the future is all about location
MIT researchers find that where new energy projects are built could be key to avoiding blackouts in a future with hotter weather and other challenges.
MIT-led project opens first climate shelter in Bangladesh
The Jameel Observatory-CREWSnet project opens a solar-powered “adaptation fortress” in Satkhira, a region facing severe and growing climate threats.
How urban design leads to better wellness
An extensive study of U.S. cities identifies walkable neighborhoods, urban greenery, and access to amenities as key contributors to residents’ health.
Scientists find ozone depletion began decades before discovery of ozone hole
Using modern tools, they also determined that carbon tetrachloride, used as a dry-cleaning and degreasing agent as early as the 1930s, was at the root of early ozone loss.
How data centers can better manage energy use
A new study suggests flexibility in the timing of electricity consumption could lower consumer costs.
What happens when environmental change outpaces life’s ability to adapt?
A new model links Earth’s mass extinctions to mismatches between rates of environmental change and biological adaptation.
Characterizing Earth’s damping mechanisms
Fourth-year PhD candidate Perrin Davidson studies the carbon cycle to understand how the planet responds to global disturbances.
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 Sustainability Science and Strategy (CS3)
CS3 research aims to improve understanding of sustainability challenges and help decision‑makers address global change, enhancing well‑being for current and future generations.
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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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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
Electronic Design
MIT researchers have developed a low temperature process to extract battery-grade lithium from spodumene, the most common type of mineral containing lithium, using a reusable liquid reagent, writes Electronic Design’s Lee Goldberg. “The new process uses a liquid reagent to dissolve the rock into the useful forms of its constituent parts — not just battery-ready lithium salts, but also smelter-grade alumina and cement-ready silica,” writes Goldberg. “After the minerals are extracted, the solvent and reagent can be recovered and used again so that waste levels approach zero.”
Tech Briefs
MIT researchers have created a new building design model that could enable engineers to construct buildings and bridges that use less materials, writes Tech Briefs’ Andrew Corselli. “Traditional topology optimization essentially starts with a blank space and tries to figure out at each point in this blank space: ‘Should there be material,’ ‘should there not be material’ from an efficiency standpoint,” says Prof. Josephine Carstensen. “Our approach populates the space with a bunch of lines that are instead candidates for ‘should there be material’ or ‘should there not be material.’ By using this line approach, we have the opportunity to have more control.”
Forbes
In a Forbes opinion piece, Joseph Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab, emphasizes the importance of place planning, which includes factoring climate risks in retirement decisions, and considering whether a community will work for an individual in the future. “If where we live increasingly shapes our health, mobility, access to care, social connection, and resilience, then retirement planning needs another dimension beyond financial preparedness,” writes Coughlin. “It is no longer simply, ‘Is this where I want to grow old?’ It is, ‘Will this place continue to support me as I grow older?’"
Gizmodo
A study by MIT researchers has found evidence that the first signs of ozone depletion appeared in 1957 in the upper tropical stratosphere, driven by carbon tetrachloride, an industrial chemical introduced in the 1930s and widely used as a dry-cleaning and degreasing agent, writes Gizmodo reporter Ellyn Lapointe. “This finding underscores the importance of long-term atmospheric monitoring so that we can fully understand how it responds to chemical pollution,” Lapointe notes.
Gizmodo
In a Gizmodo article, reporter Ellyn Lapointe features a new study, co-authored by Prof. Christopher Knittel and Prof. Catherine Wolfram, that reveals American households are spending an additional $400 to $900 per year due to extreme weather conditions. “U.S. households are experiencing the financial effects of climate change in ways that aren’t always obvious,” says Knittel. “These costs show up across different parts of people’s budgets, and over time they can become pretty significant.”
Time Magazine
Time reporter Simmone Shah highlights a study co-authored by Prof. Christopher Knittel and Prof. Catherine Wolfram that reveals extreme weather caused by climate change is costing Americans an average of $400 and $900 a year. “Even if you don't live in tornado alley, you might be seeing your insurance rates go up to cover the cost for people who are in the more danger-prone areas,” says Wolfram.
E&E News
E&E News reporter Chelsea Harvey speaks with MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy and MIT Energy Initiative Principal Research Scientist Jennifer Morris about the demise of RCP8.5, a recently-retired climate modeling scenario, and the need for increased communication about the likelihood of different climate scenarios. “It’s really no different in other areas in life that we deal with,” says Morris. “We buy insurance to protect ourselves not from the likely outcomes but from the worst-case outcomes. It’s the same thinking. We need to be thinking about what are the worst-case scenarios in addition to what are the more likely scenarios.”
National Public Radio (NPR)
NPR reporter Jeff Brady spotlights a study by Prof. Jessika Trancik and Marco Miotti PhD ’20 that found “across most of the U.S., electric vehicles are cost-competitive with their gas counterparts. And it found that in most locations, EVs also reduce emissions between 40% and 60%.”