News + Media
![Associate Professor Noelle Eckley Selin (left) and former graduate student Emil Dimanchev SM ’18 used a new method to analyze the impacts of current and proposed state-level renewable energy and carbon pricing policies. Their study yielded some unexpected outcomes on the health benefits of the policies they examined. Credit: Stuart Darsch noelle-selin-emil-dimanchev_WEB.jpg](https://globalchange.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/490x340_manual/public/in-the-news/noelle-selin-emil-dimanchev_WEB.jpg?itok=szf2Avbl)
State-level adoption saves money and lives (Energy Futures)
IN BRIEF
![Assistant Professor Valerie Karplus and her collaborators have demonstrated that measurements of air pollutants taken by NASA satellites are often a good indicator of emissions on the ground. Their approach provides regulators with a low-cost tool to ensure that industrial firms are complying with emissions standards. Credit: Kelley Travers, MITEI valerie-karplus-tracking-emissions-in-china_WEB.jpg](https://globalchange.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/490x340_manual/public/in-the-news/valerie-karplus-tracking-emissions-in-china_WEB.jpg?itok=RZ9C4fqc)
![Photo: Seventy-unit British Columbia lakeside resort hotel built with local engineered wood products including cross-laminated timber (Source: Flickr/Province of British Columbia) Winchester_EE.jpg](https://globalchange.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/490x340_manual/public/news/Winchester_EE.jpg?itok=LjkM8qV1)
To meet the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change—keeping global warming well below 2°C and ideally capping it at 1.5°C—humanity will ultimately need to achieve net zero emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere. To date emissions reduction efforts have largely...
![Credit: Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vogtle_NPP.jpg Reilly_UtilityDive_WEB.jpg](https://globalchange.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/490x340_manual/public/in-the-news/Reilly_UtilityDive_WEB.jpg?itok=hoKZPRax)
Deep decarbonization requires nuclear, says Joint Program Co-Director John Reilly (Utility Dive)
![Photo: Over 10,000 tracking heliostats focus solar energy at the receiver on the 640 foot power tower at the Crescent Dunes Solar Thermal Facility, which provides more than 500,000 megawatt hours of electricity per year, available day or night through molten salt storage. (Source: Flickr/National Renewable Energy Lab) Energy Workshop 2019.jpg](https://globalchange.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/490x340_manual/public/news/Energy%20Workshop%202019.jpg?itok=-4Tye4d5)
To meet the world’s growing demand for energy amid efforts to stabilize the global climate will require the deployment of low‑carbon energy sources on a massive scale. But mobilizing the financial resources, technological advances, public opinion and political resolve needed to move toward net...
![Image: MITEI’s "Insights into Future Mobility" report highlights the importance of near-term action to ensure the long-term sustainability of personal mobility. (Image courtesy of the MIT Energy Initiative) MIT-MITei-Future-Mobility_2_WEB.jpg](https://globalchange.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/490x340_manual/public/in-the-news/MIT-MITei-Future-Mobility_2_WEB.jpg?itok=EJgD0HSL)
Technological innovations, policies, and behavioral changes will all be needed to reach Paris climate agreement targets (Coverage: WBUR, Technology Review, E&E News, Smart Cities Dive, Forbes)
Kathryn Luu | MIT Energy Initiative November 19, 2019
![Photo: The Earth taken on Dec. 7, 1972, by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft en route to the Moon at a distance of about 29,000 kilometres (18,000 mi). IMAGE: NASA](https://globalchange.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/490x340_manual/public/news/Forest_GRS.jpg?itok=1NT1Ps0g)
A'ndrea Elyse Messer
November 12, 2019
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Equilibrium climate sensitivity — how sensitive the Earth's climate is to changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide — may be underestimated in individual climate models, according to a team of climate scientists.
![Source: CC0 Public Domain aviation_WEB.jpg](https://globalchange.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/490x340_manual/public/in-the-news/aviation_WEB.jpg?itok=fUVAmJFa)
MIT team found that air quality impacts of aviation emissions significantly exceed climate impacts (Coverage: CNN)
New research from MIT’s Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment has quantified the climate and air quality impacts of aviation, broken down by emission type, altitude and location. Writing in Environmental Research Letters, the research team examines how this damage can be mitigated, and...
![Photo: Hsieh-ho Power Plant, an oil-powered power plant in Taiwan (Source: Flickr/ waychen_c) Chen_CCE.jpg](https://globalchange.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/490x340_manual/public/news/Chen_CCE.jpg?itok=JZJaUgsl)
As the Paris Agreement nears the four-year mark and signatories prepare to account for progress to date on national pledges to reduce climate-warming greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, it’s important to note that some countries have a much heavier lift than others. A case in point is Taiwan, where...
![Photo: R.E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant (Source: Nuclear Regulatory Commission) Reilly_Congress_WEB.jpg](https://globalchange.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/490x340_manual/public/in-the-news/Reilly_Congress_WEB.jpg?itok=ez7x6FJJ)
Joint Program Co-Director John Reilly to present findings from report on deep decarbonization on Capitol Hill (Houston Chronicle) (Additional Coverage: Washington Examiner)
By James Osborne
Updated 10:12 am CST, Tuesday, November 5, 2019
WASHINGTON - Getting the power grid to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 will be far less costly if nuclear power, along with wind and solar energy, can be expanded, according to scientists from the Massachusetts...