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 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.
Computer model could enable bridges and buildings that use less material
MIT researchers developed an approach for generating more buildable structures, bridging the gap between optimized design and real-world construction.
Susan Solomon named 2026 Tang Prize laureate
The MIT professor’s groundbreaking work on atmospheric chemistry helped lay steps towards recovery of the ozone layer and demonstrated the lasting impacts of carbon emissions on Earth’s climate.
Expanding and deepening climate reporting through local messengers
A new impact report shows how the MIT Environmental Solutions Journalism Fellowship has brought community-centered climate coverage to nearly 3 million readers and listeners.
Innovative projects explore ways to deal with extreme heat
Low-cost personal cooling and emissions-free air conditioning among ideas studied with MIT’s Climate Project seed funding.
Developing innovative alternatives to conventional carbon capture methods
MIT researchers present a promising new approach to efficient, flexible carbon capture and removal.
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
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%.”
Gizmodo
MIT engineers have developed a new low-temperature process for extracting battery-grade lithium from hard rock, while reducing waste, reports Gayoung Lee for Gizmodo. “Mining is essential to technology and therefore to society, yet it is perceived negatively by much of the public as a destructive, polluting industry, in some cases with good reason,” Chiang concluded. “We hope to help change that perception by showing that there are cleaner, more sustainable ways to do it.”
GBH
It may sound fishy, but Prof. Benedetto Marelli and postdoc Giorgio Rizzo have developed a method to up-cycle seafood waste into a coating for seeds that could help plants better withstand drought, while also creating more nutritious and sustainable crops. “It all starts with the idea that we need to find new ways to grow food and, in particular, find new ways to decrease the amount of fertilizers we use,” says Marelli.
Scientific American
Prof. Susan Solomon joins Rachel Feltman on Scientific American’s Science Quickly podcast to discuss her experience researching the cause and solution for the Antarctic ozone hole in the 1980s. “Amazingly, we can show, with 95 percent confidence, now the Antarctic ozone hole is beginning to heal,” says Solomon, who published a paper on that topic last year. “That was a real incredible moment for me…I was there in 1986, and in 2026 I saw this paper appear that actually shows that we can be confident we’re seeing recovery.”
Boston 25 News
MIT researchers have developed a new traffic navigation system that more accurately reflects travel time by including parking data, reports Catherine Parotta for Boston 25. “What we can do is figure out if you’re best off trying this parking lot first, even if it’s farther than the closest parking lot,” explains Prof. Cathy Wu. Graduate student Cameron Hickert adds that: “We hope that this can help people make better decisions."