News + Media
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Water available for irrigation will be affected by climate and increasing demand from other sectors, with consequences for energy-water-land interactions.
![Image: Balancing Act (Source: Colin Harris ADE) Sergey_IIASA.jpg](https://globalchange.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/490x340_manual/public/in-the-news/Sergey_IIASA.jpg?itok=JTK_Gjtg)
Even if we cannot predict the climate and its impacts with precision, that does not mean that the best strategy is to do nothing, writes MIT Joint Program Deputy Director Sergey Paltsev in IIASA Options Magazine
Despite 193 countries adopting the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015, and its entrance into force in November 2016, the issue of climate change is still hotly debated. People question the realism of both the targets—limiting global temperature rise this century to “well below 2°C above...
![Photo: Joint Program-affiliated PhD student Sarah Fletcher (MIT Engineering Systems) (right) with (from left) Abby Onencan (Delft University of Technology), Joint Program research assistant Kathleen Mulvaney (MIT Technology and Policy Program), Kunbi Adetona (University of Calgary) and Anjuli Jain Figueroa (MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering), at the Technology Management and Policy Graduate Consortium in June in Stony Brook, New York (Photo courtesy of Sarah Fletcher) Fletcher_Awards_Photo.jpg](https://globalchange.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/490x340_manual/public/news/Fletcher_Awards_Photo.jpg?itok=oy25bGTI)
From 1997 to 2009, Melbourne, Australia experienced what was ultimately called the Millennium Drought, the worst drought on record in the island continent. To compensate, the city’s water planners invested about $3 billion in 2007 in a 150-million-cubic-meter (MCM)/year reverse osmosis...
![China's emissions trading scheme will target coal power plants, like this one in Tianjin. But the restrictions have not yet been made clear (Photo: Shubert Ciencia) Power_Plant_(Tianjin,_China).jpg](https://globalchange.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/490x340_manual/public/in-the-news/Power_Plant_%28Tianjin%2C_China%29.jpg?itok=UDweEYa5)
Climate Home: China is planning the world’s biggest carbon market, but with little detail given for its design, praise for the scheme is premature. Joint Program research assistant Emil Dimantchev comments.
By Emil Dimantchev
Much hype surrounds China’s national carbon market. Expected to begin later this year, the cap and trade system has been ballyhooed as an “ambitious” climate policy that will deliver a major portion of Beijing’s pledge to the Paris Agreement.
![The U.S. Capitol Building Readied for the Trump Inauguration (Source: Geoff Livingston) US_Capitol.jpg](https://globalchange.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/490x340_manual/public/in-the-news/US_Capitol.jpg?itok=_pFfOQP_)
Chaire Economie du Climat: Jonathan B. Wiener, J.D., author of a new essay on the current status and possible future of U.S. climate policies, spoke on this topic at the XL (40th) MIT Global Change Forum in March.
![Atacama desert Airport - Chile Airbus A320 Lan Airline Chile (Source: alobos Life) Reilly_Marketplace.jpg](https://globalchange.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/490x340_manual/public/in-the-news/Reilly_Marketplace.jpg?itok=__uYYUyu)
NPR Marketplace: MIT Joint Program Co-Director John Reilly comments on the economic and societal impacts of heat waves, which are becoming more frequent under climate change
By Kimberly Adams
When air gets really hot, like 120 degrees hot, it means two things for the air-traveling public in the Southwestern United States. One, your plane will have to go faster to generate enough airflow over its wings to get enough lift to get off the ground. But two, the...
![Temperature difference from normal in 2016. (NASA) WashPo_Emanuel_WEB.jpg](https://globalchange.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/490x340_manual/public/in-the-news/WashPo_Emanuel_WEB.jpg?itok=kGwac_Jk)
Washington Post: MIT Joint Program-affiliated EAPS Prof. Kerry Emanuel co-authors op-ed critiquing the EPA administrator's call for opposing teams to debate climate change science
By Benjamin Santer, Kerry Emanuel and Naomi Oreskes June 21 at 1:08 PM
Commentary
![MIT President L. Rafael Reif (left) and Iberdrola Chairman and CEO Ignacio S. Galán Photo courtesy of Iberdrola MIT-Reif-Galan_2.jpg (](https://globalchange.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/490x340_manual/public/in-the-news/MIT-Reif-Galan_2.jpg?itok=jgRUqq24)
Funding will establish MIT professorship and support low-carbon energy and climate initiatives
Emily Dahl | MIT Energy Initiative June 21, 2017
Press Inquiries
![Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (second left); Christiana Figueres (left), Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); Laurent Fabius (second right), Minister for Foreign Affairs of France and President of the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21) and François Hollande (right), President of France celebrate after the historic adoption of Paris Agreement on climate change. Paris_Agreement_WEB.jpg](https://globalchange.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/490x340_manual/public/in-the-news/Paris_Agreement_WEB.jpg?itok=5u8vBPLf)
FactCheck.org: The 0.2 C figure “reflects only the incremental effect of Paris when built upon all the previous commitments made through the UNFCCC,” and “assumed no further strengthening of national commitments in years after 2030,” says MIT Joint Program Co-Director John Reilly.
President Donald Trump and his top environmental official said the Paris Agreement would reduce the global average temperature by only 0.2 degrees Celsius. Former Vice President Al Gore said that’s “not true.” Who’s right?
![Photo: John Reilly and his colleagues in the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change used a comprehensive set of linked models to demonstrate how dramatically the world’s energy system needs to change—within the next few decades—to prevent excessive global warming by 2100. Source: Dimonika Bray, MIT John_Reilly_WEB.jpg](https://globalchange.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/490x340_manual/public/in-the-news/John_Reilly_WEB.jpg?itok=wOg1mMRG)
Energy Futures: John Reilly and colleagues in the MIT Joint Program used a comprehensive set of linked models to demonstrate how dramatically the world’s energy system needs to change—within the next few decades—to prevent excessive global warming by 2100
An MIT analysis of the Paris climate agreement finds that—even if all the participating nations meet their pledges—global warming will exceed the 2°C maximum targeted for 2100 as early as 2050. To determine what else is needed, researchers at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of...