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.
Looking for more videos?
More about climate change from MIT
News
A journey of resilience, fueled by learning
How experience with real-world problem-solving, combined with MIT Open Learning’s online resources and internship opportunities, solidified one Afghani learner’s career path.
After more than a decade of successes, ESI’s work will spread out across the Institute
John Fernandez will step down as head of the Environmental Solutions Initiative, as its components will become part of the Climate Project and other entities.
Decarbonizing steel is as tough as steel
But a new study shows how advanced steelmaking technologies could substantially reduce carbon emissions.
Recovering from the past and transitioning to a better energy future
In MIT Energy Initiative speaker series, Princeton Professor Emily Green explains the importance of climate change mitigation in the energy transition.
“Each of us holds a piece of the solution”
Campus gathers with Vice President for Energy and Climate Evelyn Wang to explore the Climate Project at MIT, make connections, and exchange ideas.
New facility to accelerate materials solutions for fusion energy
MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center to establish the Schmidt Laboratory for Materials in Nuclear Technologies.
Day of Climate inspires young learners to take action
Featuring a diverse lineup of speakers, including Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics and an interactive projects showcase, the event empowered youth to tackle big challenges together.
Study helps pinpoint areas where microplastics will accumulate
Biofilms deposited by living organisms reduce the accumulation of small particles, while areas of bare sand can be microplastics hotspots.
Centers, Labs, and Programs
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
D-Lab
MIT D-Lab works with people around the world to develop and advance collaborative approaches and practical solutions to global poverty challenges.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
MIT Climate Portal
The portal offers educational information about climate change directly from MIT experts.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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
Wired
Noman Bashir, a fellow with the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium and a postdoc at CSAIL, speaks with Wired reporter Molly Taft about AI and energy consumption. Bashir explains that how quickly a model answers a question has a big impact on its energy use. “The goal is to provide all of this inference the quickest way possible so that you don’t leave their platform,” Bashir says. “If ChatGPT suddenly starts giving you a response after five minutes, you will go to some other tool that is giving you an immediate response.”
The Washington Post
Vijay Gadepally, a senior scientist at MIT Lincoln Lab, discusses users can help conserve energy while using AI tools, reports Nicolás Rivero for The Washington Post. Gadepally notes that users can save energy by asking the AI to be concise when you don’t need long answers, as models use more energy for each word they process. “People often mistake these things as having some sort of sentience,” says Gadepally. “You don’t need to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ It’s okay. They don’t mind.”
The Boston Globe
Senior Research Scientist C. Adam Schlosser speaks with Boston Globe reporter Lindsay Crudele about how tending to personal gardens can be an effective tool in combating climate change. “We obviously have a lot of technologies that are trying to remove carbon from the air,” Schlosser explains, but “the best way of doing that, in terms of nature, is to plant new vegetation.”
The Boston Globe
Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang and his colleagues has developed a sodium-air fuel cell that “packs three to four times more energy per pound than common lithium-ion batteries,” reports Aaron Pressman for The Boston Globe, which could serve as “a potentially groundbreaking clean power source for airplanes.” Pressman adds that: “Ultimately, a sodium-air fuel cell could power a regional jet carrying 50 to 100 passengers on flights as long as 300 miles.”
WBUR
A study by Prof. Noelle Selin has found that climate change will impact our ability to curb smoke and smog pollutants, reports Vivian La for WBUR. The researchers “used computer models to predict how air pollution will develop in the Eastern United States over the next few decades,” explains La. Selin underscored the importance of policies that reduce air pollution noting that: “what we’re doing to the atmosphere has impacts and it’s important not to roll these back.”
Forbes
Forbes reporter Cornelia Walther spotlights innovators from MIT Solve’s climate solver teams, which “underscore the power of AI as a catalyst for transforming change across diverse sectors.” The teams illustrate “that when carefully designed and applied, AI can deliver substantial benefits for the environment — improving operational efficiency, cutting waste and even supporting social equity,” writes Walther.
Engineeringness
A study by MIT researchers finds “using scrubbers to treat exhaust from heavy fuel oil may offer environmental performance on par with, and in some areas superior to, burning low-sulfur fuels in maritime shipping,” reports Hassan Ahmed for Engineeringness. “The research provides data that could help policymakers and industry leaders better assess the comparative costs and benefits of available fuel options,” explains Ahmed.
USA Today
Graduate student Will Parker joins USA Today’s The Excerpt host Dana Taylor to discuss his research on the impact of climate change on space satellites. “We're seeing a cooling effect in the upper atmosphere where most of our satellites are operating, and because of that cooling effect, we're seeing that the entire atmosphere is contracting, so it's retreating away from low Earth orbit where we rely on that atmosphere for drag on our satellites,” explains Parker. “The effect of that retreat, that shrinking of the atmosphere, is that it's not doing as good a job at cleaning out low Earth orbit, and again, we rely on that cleaning force because we have no other way to remove most of this debris.”