At the XLVI (46th) MIT Global Change Forum on March 28-29, 2024, more than 100 attendees from industry, academia, government and NGOs gathered at the Samberg Conference Center on the MIT campus to explore climate change trends, physical and economic climate impacts, and policy and communications strategies to accelerate climate action as global temperatures continue to soar.
The Forum’s keynote speaker, Commonwealth of Massachusetts Climate Chief Melissa Hoffer, explored a critical aspect of the climate challenge: change management.
“We are living through one of the most transformational periods in human history; we’re in the midst of the energy transition away from fossil fuels, but also experience disruptions from the loss of our stable climate,” said Hoffer. “It’s a profound and open question whether institutions can transform themselves in the ways demanded by disruptive climate change.”
To solve the urgent problems caused by climate change and achieve long-term climate goals, Hoffer stressed the need to rethink institutions, practices, world views and systems. “If enough leaders of institutions begin to lead as if all life matters,” she said, “they’ll create a slipstream that will make it easier for others to do the same, and to ‘stay with the trouble and midwife the new.’”
In that spirit, this year’s Forum presenters explored near- and long-term climate challenges and opportunities in six sessions focused on climate change trends; physical and health impacts; economic impacts; current climate polices; future climate policies; and climate communication: the path forward.
Facilitated by representatives of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, each session consisted of the presentation of recent research results or insights on the topic, followed by a moderated, open discussion with all participants. In adherence to the “Chatham House Rule,” all sessions were off the record, with no press and no attribution of speakers’ comments without permission. Here, with permission from all speakers referenced below, we summarize key points from this year’s Forum presentations.
Climate change trends
Drawing on data from the National Centers for Environmental Information and Fifth National Climate Assessment, NCEI Director Derek Arndt highlighted current climate trends in the United States and around the world. Global climate trends include rising global average surface temperatures, a warming lower atmosphere and cooling upper atmosphere, declining Arctic sea ice and rising sea levels, and more frequent and intense rain and extreme heat events. In the U.S., emissions have fallen since peaking in 2007, but climate impacts continue unabated. Without deeper cuts in global net greenhouse gas emissions and accelerated adaptation efforts, severe climate risks to the U.S. will continue to grow.
Citing data from the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report and the MIT Joint Program’s 2023 Global Change Outlook, MIT Joint Program Deputy Director C. Adam Schlosser showed that it’s highly likely that global warming will temporarily exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius (the Paris Agreement’s aspirational limit) but could dip below that before 2100. Beyond 1.5˚C, the risk of severe impacts to some ecosystems and locations becomes larger with every tenth of a degree, including climatic and ecosystem tipping points from which rapid recovery may not be possible, and unprecedented extreme weather events. However, global climate mitigation policies aligned with the 1.5˚C goal could dramatically reduce long-term climate risks.
Physical and health impacts
MIT Joint Program Principal Research Scientist Xiang Gao discussed physical impacts of global climate change on different sectors of society. Gao reviewed recent studies showing how climate change is disrupting ecosystems and degrading biodiversity, leading to urban land expansion and global food production loss, increasing drought and reducing water resources, negatively impacting energy generation, and amplifying the intensity and frequency of extreme events. She also presented potential adaptation strategies and the status of their implementation. To tackle climate risks at regional and local scales, she recommended the development of: higher-resolution climate models that could provide more reliable projections, more equitable climate adaptation practices, and globally coordinated efforts and commitments.
Noting that air pollution exposure is a leading risk factor for premature mortality, Arlene Fiore, MIT Professor of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, outlined three key challenges in assessing climate impacts on air quality and health: uncertainties in quantifying exposure to ozone and fine particles, the two top air pollutants; uncertain responses of air pollution to climate (and other global) change; and uncertainty in precursor emissions and formation chemistry, which matters for designing effective ground-level ozone abatement strategies. To improve these assessments, Fiore recommended combining information across multiple exposure datasets, tapping transformative satellite data, and advancing understanding of the interactions between atmospheric chemistry and climate, among other things.
Economic Impacts
According to James Rising, Assistant Professor at the University of Delaware School of Marine Science and Policy, a comprehensive evaluation of climate-related economic risk includes losses to income or consumption, welfare loss from non-market impacts, inequality in losses, variability in impacts and disasters, and multiple forms of uncertainty. Rising observed that losses from climate change exceed costs of mitigation, damages increase more quickly at higher temperatures, and damages reinforce existing inequalities. While noting rapid progress from multiple methodologies for assessing climate-related economic impacts, he maintained that new approaches are needed to address interacting structural changes and catastrophic risk, and to support targeted resilience for vulnerable communities.
MIT Joint Program Principal Research Scientist Jennifer Morris delivered three main messages on the economic impacts of climate change. First, we do not have robust, comprehensive estimates of the global economic impacts of climate change. Second, we do not have robust estimates of global climate change mitigation costs. And third, caution is needed in how economic impact and mitigation cost estimates are interpreted. Morris advocated for multiple improvements in this research domain. Among them: mitigation cost assessments should consider a greater variety of assumptions, especially about policy design; more representation of uncertainty and adaptation is needed in economic models; and more attention to irreversible damages and tipping points is needed.
Current climate policies
MIT Sloan School of Management Visiting Professor Gilbert Metcalf summarized current climate policies in the U.S. First, Metcalf highlighted the Biden Administration’s strong commitment to achieving the U.S. nationally determined contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement (a 50-52% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2030) through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and executive actions aimed at boosting electric vehicle deployment, reducing power plant and methane emissions, and increasing the social cost of carbon. Next, he described technological, legislative, judicial, and geo-political challenges to achieving the U.S. NDC. His conclusion: the IRA is a costly approach to lowering emissions, but the only game in town.
Bert Saveyn, European Commission Team Leader for Energy Economics and Modeling, described current energy policies in the European Union (EU). Saveyn noted that current energy prices are lower than in previous years, due in part to geopolitical developments, reduced demand for natural gas, and record deployment of renewables, and that record high electricity prices due to the energy crisis could accelerate the transition. He showcased how prices of electricity in Sweden (99% based on low-carbon sources) are lower than in Italy (based on fossil fuels). Finally, he outlined the EU’s current policy objectives: a “Fit for 55” package to meet 2030 climate targets, and a comprehensive energy system investment agenda to meet 2040 targets.
Future climate policies
Robert Stavins, A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy & Economic Development at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, highlighted key takeaways from last year’s COP28 UN climate change conference in Dubai, including the closing statement’s commitment to “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner.” While “transitioning away” was a compromise from “phasing out” fossil fuels, the statement did endorse tripling global renewable energy capacity and doubling the annual rate of energy-efficiency improvements. Other important developments included a pre-conference agreement between the U.S. and China to renew cooperation on climate change, and increased attention to methane emissions mitigation and climate adaptation.
MIT Joint Program Deputy Director Sergey Paltsev explored greenhouse gas emissions pathways designed to keep global warming below 1.5˚C. Citing the 2023 Global Change Outlook and a recent MIT Joint Program study, Paltsev showed that it’s possible to reach the 1.5˚C goal with a brief overshoot, or without achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. However, he cautioned that finding international consensus on what constitutes a “just, orderly and equitable” energy transition/climate policy could prove difficult. Finally, he outlined current clean energy investments and climate policies that are helping to accelerate decarbonization of world economies, and underscored the need for negative emissions technologies in the latter half of the century.
Climate communication: the path forward (panel)
Susanne Moser, Director and Principal Researcher at Susanne Moser Research & Consulting, argued that transformative climate communication involves more than what’s already been tried—communicating the science better, countering climate denial, moving from problem to solution, acknowledging despair/cultivating hope, and contending with inequities and multiple, simultaneous crises. Now it means moving “from delivering unwelcome messages to participating in difficult dialogues; from delivering scientific findings to making a human connection; from thinking we speak only to the mind to also engaging the heart; from merely giving bad news to accompanying peoples’ emotional journey; from triggering fight-or-flight (trauma response) to supporting healing and motivating active engagement in creating feasible futures,” said Moser.
MIT Professor Noelle Selin (Institute for Data, Systems and Society, and Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences) shared three observations about the art of climate communication from a scientist’s vantage point. First, ongoing engagement with decision-makers can lead to better results and climate policy design. Second, effective climate communication involves targeting messages that not only tell the truth but also ensure that multiple audiences receive the message correctly. Finally, climate communication can be risky. A targeted message used to be only heard by that audience, but the ability of that message to go viral on social media and get misinterpreted by a non-targeted audience is very real.
Drawing on public surveys in eight countries, David Reiner, Professor at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, UK, has uncovered some counterintuitive results. He found a large majority of climate skeptics did not oppose Covid-19 vaccines, and the vast majority of antivaxxers were not climate deniers. In the U.S., less than 20% of skeptics were “double skeptics,” and in other countries that figure was even lower. While these hardcore skeptics have a consistent skeptic worldview, single-issue skeptics can be swayed by education, engagement and well-crafted messaging. Reiner recommended that climate communicators customize the content and format of their messages to specific audiences, and build trust with those audiences by being relatable.
Michelle A. Amazeen, Associate Professor and Director of the Communication Research Center at the Boston University Department of Mass Communication, Advertising and Public Relations, observed that journalistic publications have turned to “native advertising”—sponsored content designed to blend in with the editorial content around it—to raise revenue amid the emergence of digital media and ad blockers and decline of advertising revenue. Amazeen cited studies showing that most readers perceive native advertising as editorial news content, and that the advertisers have influenced news coverage. Her proposed remedies include requiring the standardization of disclosures, watermarking, and a searchable ad library; monitoring/enforcement of policy compliance; and media literacy education/training.
“To accelerate climate action and stop rising greenhouse gas emissions and at least stabilize the climate system, we need to work on all fronts—science, affordable technology, policy, politics, factual communications—and to push forward wherever we possibly can,” said MIT Joint Program Director Ronald Prinn, a professor at MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, in closing remarks. “We can’t hope for a miracle to solve our problems; many smaller but relentless steps can make a big difference, and so I think there is a way out of the apparent dilemma that’s in front of us.”
Photo: The XLVI (46th) MIT Global Change Forum explored climate change trends; physical and health impacts; economic impacts; current climate polices; future climate policies; and climate communication: the path forward. The climate communication panel included Susanne Moser, Michelle Amazeen, Noelle Selin and David Reiner. Source: MIT Joint Program/Dimonika Bray)