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
The power of “and” in energy and climate entrepreneurship
Greentown Labs CEO Georgina Campbell Flatter emphasizes the importance of collaboration in the entrepreneurship space, and the role that universities play in this landscape.
A regulatory loophole could delay ozone recovery by years
Scientists say an exception in the Montreal Protocol for the use of ozone-depleting feedstocks could set the ozone recovery back seven years.
Carbon removal project supports Maine’s blue economy, broader marine health
A chemical-free approach to balancing ocean acidity protects marine life and could dramatically impact the global aquaculture market.
Desirée Plata appointed associate dean of engineering
Faculty member in civil and environmental engineering will advance research and entrepreneurial initiatives across the School of Engineering.
Climate change may produce “fast-food” phytoplankton
With warmer ocean temperatures, the composition of marine plankton could shift from protein-rich to carb-heavy, a new study suggests.
Climate change may produce “fast-food” phytoplankton
With warmer ocean temperatures, the composition of marine plankton could shift from protein-rich to carb-heavy, a new study suggests.
A complicated future for a methane-cleansing molecule
A new model shows how levels of the “atmosphere’s detergent” may rise and fall in response to climate change.
3 Questions: Communicating about climate, in audio and beyond
Madison Goldberg, the new host of the Ask MIT Climate podcast, talks about her career as a science communicator as well as ideas she thinks it’s important for climate communicators to convey.
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
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."
WBUR
Writing for WBUR, MIT Profs. Christopher Knittel, Catherine Wolfram and UCLA Prof. Kimberly Clausing break down the cost of climate change for the average American household, which is about $900 each year. “Climate inaction isn’t just an environmental failure, it’s a sizable part of America’s affordability problem,” they write. “Recognizing this may finally make climate action something voters can rally behind.”
Newsweek
Researchers at MIT have “developed a housing concept that challenges how long homes can last and evolve through time,” reports Soo Kim for Newsweek. “Known as the Heirloom House, the project is designed to last for a millennium while remaining flexible enough to adapt to daily use, shifting climates, and generational change,” explains Kim.
The Boston Globe
Senior Research Scientist C. Adam Schlosser, deputy director of the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy, speaks with Joshua Miller of The Boston Globe’s Camberville & Beyond newsletter about weather, climate and how warming temperatures could impact the Northeastern US. Schlosser explains that: “warmer air can carry more moisture, more vapor. So, imagine again a future for the Northeast where everything is risen by a few degrees. It's not just the daytime temperatures, but the nighttime temperatures. The amount of vapor in the air has a big impact on nighttime temperatures, and on hot, humid nights, your body's ability to cool is diminished.”
USA Today
Research Scientist Judah Cohen speaks with USA Today reporter Doyle Rice about how changes in the polar vortex will impact March weather across the United States. “I would expect a milder period in the eastern US until close to the spring equinox," says Cohen. "Then I think eventually colder weather arrives to the eastern U.S. related to the polar vortex split in late March or early April that could hang around for a while."
New York Times
A study by researchers at MIT has found that high levels of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere is impacting the satellite orbits that typically force objects back to Earth, leading to an increased amount of space junk, reports Sachi Kitajima Mulkey for The New York Times. “[W]e’re losing this cleaning force that we rely on” says William Parker PhD '25.
New York Times
A paper by Prof. Christopher Knittel and his colleagues explores the impact of climate change on inflation, reports Lydia DePillis for The New York Times. “We’re likely at this inflection point where costs are going to start growing more rapidly,” says Knittel. “The observed costs have been fairly linear so far. Going forward, that’s going to start increasing at an increasing rate.”