News + Media
News Release
MIT News | Nov 05, 2020
Carbon capture and storage key to achieving climate goals
Aiming to avoid the worst effects of climate change, from severe droughts to extreme coastal flooding, the nearly 200 nations that signed the Paris Agreement set a long-term goal of keeping global warming well below two degrees Celsius. Achieving that goal will require dramatic reductions in...
News Release
Nov 04, 2020
XLIII (43rd) MIT Global Change Forum highlights opportunities for science-based decision-making
We live at a time of increasing physical risk—exposure to detrimental climate change and/or weather extremes—as well as transition risk—particularly the financial impacts of fossil fuel assets losing their value in the needed rapid transition to a low-carbon economy aimed at stabilizing the...
Commentary
Yale Climate Connections | Nov 01, 2020
Concurrent extreme climate events can amount to a challenging 'two-fer' or even a 'three-fer' in terms of adverse impacts (Yale Climate Connections)
Wildfires in California, Oregon, and Washington are this year’s poster children for extreme natural disasters. Hardly a day passed in August and September without disturbing pictures of heart-wrenching damages and loss of life.
Commentary
Yale Climate Connections | Nov 01, 2020
Lessons from coronavirus inform and enhance our understanding of needed next steps on climate change crisis (Yale Climate Connections)
Let’s again explore why responding to climate change is so urgent, this time drawing lessons gleaned from our experiences with the novel coronavirus. And let’s take advantage of some of the increasingly obvious parallels between how both climate change and COVID-19 threaten society.
In The News
Environmental Solutions Initiative | Oct 29, 2020
What it will take to achieve long-term climate goals (TILclimate)
Is it too late to prevent climate change? Are the scary predictions that we hear about inevitable? In this episode of TILclimate (Today I Learned Climate), MIT Prof. Noelle Selin joins host Laur Hesse Fisher to answer these questions. They explore what change is predictable, explain what climate...
Around Campus
MIT News | Oct 24, 2020
An online symposium explores roles for research universities and outlines the Institute’s efforts to be a testbed for research and policy innovations
Becky Ham | MIT News Office
Publication Date:
October 23, 2020
Under its Plan for Action on Climate Change, MIT has a goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 32 percent below its 2014 emission levels, by 2030. Those reductions are now at 24 percent, and the...
Commentary
Yale Climate Connections | Oct 23, 2020
Restoring its international standing on climate leadership is critical to the country's national interests and global stability (Yale Climate Connections)
By Richard Richels, Henry Jacoby, and Gary Yohe | Friday, October 23, 2020
When the Trump administration gave notice that the U.S. would drop out of the Paris Climate Agreement, it said it was doing so because it was a bad deal for the country. This view is wrongheaded. The science is...
News Release
Oct 16, 2020
Joint Program researchers to share findings on the state of global change
This year’s American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting will be held online, making it one of the world’s largest virtual scientific conferences ever. Held December 1-17 (with most scientific programming taking place December 7-11) and presenting more than 1,000 hours of content, AGU20 will...
News Release
MIT News | Oct 15, 2020
High-resolution climate projections could enable a robust adaptation and resilience response
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is at a crossroads. Recent long-term studies of the area indicate that rising temperatures and evaporation rates will likely further deplete scarce water resources critical to meeting the nation’s agricultural, industrial and domestic needs; more extreme...
News Brief
MIT Press | Oct 14, 2020
MIT EAPS/IDSS Assoc. Prof. and Joint Program faculty affiliate Noelle Selin co-authors new book (Book website)
Summary
An interdisciplinary analysis of human interactions with mercury through history that sheds light on efforts to promote and achieve sustainability.