The MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative’s (ESI’s) Primer of COP16
By: Marcela Ángel, Research Program Director, MIT ESI; Silvia Duque, MIT Master in City Planning student; and Hannah Leung, MIT Master in City Planning and Master of Science in Real Estate student
This year’s 16th global Conference of the Parties (COP16) for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was held in Cali, Colombia from Oct. 21 to Nov. 1. It was a gathering of governments, NGOs, businesses, academic institutions, and practitioners focused on stopping global biodiversity loss and advancing the 23 goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) — an international agreement adopted in 2022 to guide global efforts to protect and restore biodiversity through 2030.
Under Colombia’s ambitious vision of creating peace with nature — and with the participation of a record number of 23,000 delegates, five heads of state, and more than 150 ministers and vice ministers — COP16 achieved important milestones of the KMGBF and more broadly helped raise public awareness on biodiversity challenges and potential solutions.
The conference, based on COP tradition, was held in two designated venues: the Green and Blue Zones. The Blue Zone is the space for formal negotiations and closed conversations intended for registered delegates, while the Green Zone is open to the public and focused on showcasing relevant initiatives across businesses and raising public awareness. COP16’s Green Zone was also the first to be held in a public space, as it was in Cali’s city center, which was able to increase the general public’s exposure to the urgent needs of biodiversity conservation and potential solutions. Given this location, it was also able to reach about a million visits.
In addition to incremental agreements and coalitions formed behind closed doors, there were multiple notable breakthroughs, including:
- the launch of the Cali Fund which mandates companies that use digital sequence information (DSI) from biodiversity genetic resources to share half of their profits with Indigenous peoples and local communities;
- a work program and subsidiary body under Article 8(j) of the KMGBF for Afro-descendant, Indigenous, and local communities which, sets up a mechanism that guarantees formal participation of Afro-descendants, Indigenous peoples, and local communities in decision-making processes under the UN biodiversity convention;
- a global agreement to identify and conserve marine areas of high ecological importance in international waters, strengthening global ocean governance.
MIT delegates attend COP16 in Cali, Colombia. From left to right: Kevin Lin Yang, MIT Technology and Policy Program student; Marcela Angel, Research Program Director at the MIT ESI; Hannah Leung, MIT Master in City Planning and Master of Science in Real Estate student; and Silvia Duque, MIT Master in City Planning student.
Despite these breakthroughs, several key issues are still left unresolved, particularly around funding and monitoring of targets in data-poor contexts. Most international organizations agree that there is still a major financial gap to meet the 2030 goals. The annual climate finance needed to match countries’ climate action goals is currently at $8.1 trillion USD, and will steadily increase to over $10 trillion USD from 2031 to 2050, marking a sixfold increase from $1.3 trillion USD in the year 2021. These financial concerns were echoed across multiple sessions across COP16, and they are agreed to be a common barrier to achieving various countries’ climate goals.
MIT’s engagement, led by the MIT ESI, included the participation of over 10 delegates — including faculty, researchers, and students — from groups including the MIT ESI; the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS); the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL); the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP); the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS); and MIT’s Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy. They each participated in major roundtables and presented research to fellow delegates in over 15 spaces across the Blue and Green Zones.
Please keep an eye out for a follow-up article that will detail more of MIT and the MIT ESI’s involvement in COP16.
Governing Critical Mineral Mining and the Clean Energy Transition
As the global community races to mitigate climate change, demand for many metals and minerals is expected to increase to supply the production of wind turbines, solar panels, and electric vehicles for the clean energy transition. At the same time, countries are expected to continue to demand these materials for infrastructure, consumer technology, and defense. The International Energy Agency estimates that these trends could contribute to a 150% increase in global demand for copper between 2023 and 2040, a doubling of demand for cobalt and nickel, and an 870% increase for lithium.
Yet mining can create serious environmental and social impacts in local areas of operation. For example, mining and the processing of natural resources uses large amounts of water, which can exacerbate scarcity in drought-prone regions also under stress from climate change. Mining can also pollute water, soil, and air, and necessarily involves major changes in land use, often displacing pre-existing populations.
At the same time, geopolitical tensions between the US and China could threaten mineral supply chains that are needed to facilitate rapid deployment of clean energy technology, leading countries that have long depended on mineral imports to invest more in mining. These emerging trends require effective local, national, and international governance to ensure a just energy transition.
Earlier this month, Program Scientist Scott Odell, who leads the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative’s (ESI’s) Mining and the Circular Economy program, participated in a panel discussion on these topics organized and moderated by Maria-Therese Gustafsson, Associate Professor of Political Science at Stockholm University, Sweden. Entitled “Governing Critical Raw Materials and the Energy Transition: Challenges for Socio-Environmental Sustainability,” the event convened four researchers from different parts of the world to consider the current state of critical mineral governance, as well as challenges and opportunities to improving it. The meeting offered a unique opportunity for ESI staff to engage with other scholars working on critical mineral mining governance and highlighted the urgent need for attention to this issue from scholars, industry, and policymakers.
In her remarks, panelist Erika Weinthal, John O. Blackburn Distinguished Chair in Environmental Social Systems at Duke University, United States, noted the complexity of mineral governance given the long supply chain of extraction, processing, and incorporation into final products, and pointed out that while much attention has been paid to international and national-level governance, more attention is needed on the local impacts of mining. Susan Park, Professor of Global Governance at University of Syndey, Australia, presented an analysis of 44 transnational mineral governance initiatives, showing that most focus on supply chain security and energy access, with insufficient attention to environmental and social harms of extraction.
MIT ESI Program Scientist Scott Odell (second from left) responds to a question from the audience. Other speakers, from left to right, include Kløcker Larsen, Stockholm Environmental Institute; Hyeyoon Park, University of Stirling; Susan Park, University of Sydney; Erika Weinthal, Duke University; and Maria-Therese Gustaffson, Stockholm University. Photo credit: Stockholm University
Hyeyoon Park, Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Stirling, United Kingdom, raised concern that geopolitical pressures to decouple from China — which dominates the metal processing industry and the mining of some metals — puts at risk China’s incentive to participate in transnational mineral governance mechanisms. From a specific national case, Kløcker Larsen, Senior Research Fellow on Rights and Equity at the Stockholm Environment Institute, discussed concerns that mineral deposits in Sweden tend to be concentrated on Indigenous Sámi lands, and that traditionally, regulatory measures have been insufficient to protect human rights. However, he noted that space is opening in the court system to better respond to community concerns.
For his part, Odell presented case study results from his research in Chile, the world’s largest producer of copper and second largest of lithium. (See related: “Hydrosocial Displacements: Climate Change and Community Relations in Chile’s Mining Regions.”) Specifically, he noted that the impacts of climate change and expanded mining are resulting in conflicts over water in Chilean mining regions. New efforts to address these challenges through seawater desalination and greater collaboration between companies and communities are helping, but risk simply displacing the negative impacts of mining downstream and/or to more vulnerable communities. Odell concluded his remarks by highlighting three broad challenges and opportunities for critical mineral governance that emerge from the Chile case:
- Mine better, especially with regard to community relations, mine closure, and tailings management;
- Advance the circular economy so that more metal is recycled, and not only mined;
- Develop methods to mitigate energy and metal consumption.
Building from these points, Odell expressed optimism that the current high level of public attention on critical minerals creates a unique opportunity for society to rethink and redesign our consumption and production systems to be more sustainable.
The event was co-organized by the Nordic Institute of Latin American Studies, the Mistra Mineral Governance Program, the GRIP-ARM project, and the EPPLE Group at Stockholm University.
Betting on Climate Solutions at Climate Week NYC 2024
By: Marcela Angel, Research Program Director
At Climate Week NYC, The Rockefeller Foundation brought together 16 Fellows demonstrating a “big bet mindset,” or the belief that it is possible to use large-scale solutions to address climate change. I had the opportunity to be part of the inaugural cohort of fellows, focused on Latin America and the Caribbean, where I’ve highlighted the Environmental Solutions Initiative’s (ESI’s) big bet to create participatory monitoring systems that increase community resilience against predictable climate risks.
From June to September, other Fellows and I participated in a leadership development program centered on the Big Bets Toolkit, which is The Rockefeller Foundation’s how-to guide on promoting transformative change effectively and at scale. The program, facilitated by the global design and innovation company IDEO, culminated with the Big Bets for Climate Futures event at the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly 79 (#UNGA79).
The 2024 cohort of The Rockefeller Foundation’s Big Bets Climate Fellows during Climate Week NYC. Photo credit: Natalia Vasquez
During the event, following a dialogue between marine biologist Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and journalist Elizabeth Kolbert, the cohort of Fellows presented projects that contributed to answering four questions about what the world could look like if we truly embraced climate solutions, building on Johnson’s recently launched book, What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures.
The questions are as follows:
What if the people most affected showed us the way?
What if we reimagine financing, regeneratively?
What if we valued our landscapes differently?
What if technology was a tool and not a mode?
Divided in groups according to the themes that connected our projects, the first group addressed the people-centered question by highlighting the voices of four local environmental leaders, including indigenous leaders and women activists who embody alternative and more inclusive pathways for development; the finance group offered equations on how to align incentives to transform extractive models into regenerative futures; the landscapes group put forward models that leverage biodiversity, lands, and water to sustain healthy and prosperous communities and ecosystems; and lastly, the technology group provided vivid visualizations on how technology can help collect and analyze data to make informed decisions in the legal, scientific, public health, and climate adaptation realms.
Speakers in the technology group converse. From left to right: Big Bets Climate Fellows Erika Berenguer, Reinhold Gallmetzer, Avriel Diaz, and Marcela Angel; followed by the Lead of Convenings and Networks, Nathalia A. M. dos Santos. Photo credit: Natalia Vasquez
A Community-Centered Data-Driven Approach to Climate Adaptation
As part of the technology group, I presented the ESI’s work in Mocoa, and our quest to test the use of new technologies — such as drones and AI — to enhance the capacities of local communities to address local environmental priorities.
Environmental threats are amplified and multiplied by the effects of climate change. Landslides represent one of such threats, exacerbating intense pressures on frontline communities who live and work in areas with compounding risks and vulnerabilities. Nonetheless, communities at the frontlines of climate impacts who live and depend on strategic ecosystems in Latin America often face a systemic lack of data to make informed adaptation decisions. In Mocoa, Colombia, a city affected by a devastating landslide in 2017, this void has resulted in delays in rebuilding efforts, erosion of trust in government institutions, an impediment to create community consensus around development decisions, and potential climate maladaptation.
The ESI’s Drones for Equitable Climate Change Adaptation (DECCA) project addresses these challenges by developing a comprehensive data collection and forecasting system. This initiative focuses on four priorities: (1) empowering local organizations with technical capacities for data collection, (2) utilizing drones and machine learning, (3) enhancing community resilience through evidence-based preparedness, and (4) ensuring equitable access to risk information.
This project is inspired by technological innovation in the fields of remote sensing technologies and machine learning, but it is equally innovative in its participatory approach. In a context where disaster response has consisted predominantly of top-down efforts conducted by national authorities and where alternatively and inspiring small-scale bottom-up actions remain limited for the scale of the challenge, the project was able to bring to the table unlikely partners from academia (MIT’s ESI, MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Lincoln Laboratories, and the Pratt Center for Planning and the Environment); local and national government agencies (the Ministry of Environment of Colombia and Corpoamazonia); international cooperations (the Global Environmental Facility and CAF Development Bank of Latin America); the technology start-up Airworks; community-based groups (including representatives from indigenous and Afro-descendant communities, community oversight groups, youth, and victims of the landslide), and others who would not have a sit at the table without the spaces created by the project.
Ultimately, my goal as an urban planner and researcher is to transform data into knowledge and action. By harnessing technological advancements alongside community-based planning, we aim to bolster resilience against predictable climate risks, ensuring that communities like Mocoa are equipped to thrive in the face of adversity.
A Collective Vision for Climate Futures in Latin America
Aiming for transformational change, integrating novel solutions, convening unlikely partners, and with a long-term commitment to achieve measurable outcomes, the work in Mocoa is representative of the ambitious big bets mindset and principles, and it is one among other urgently-needed solutions that focus on Latin America’s natural wealth as a source of solutions. The 2024 cohort included Fellows working to fireproof the Amazon forest; create the largest edible-forest; predict the spread of climate-sensitive diseases and secure budgets for preventing outbreaks; and highlight the voices of women, indigenous people, and local communities who have achieved transformational change, among other inspiring solutions.
Participating in these discussions is crucial as we collectively seek to mitigate climate change and adapt to its impacts by developing and showcasing alternative climate futures. The knowledge and connections gained from this network of remarkable Latin American climate leaders will enhance our efforts in Mocoa and beyond, inspiring collaborative approaches to natural climate and community solutions.
To learn more about Marcela Angel’s work, you can email her at marcelaa@mit.edu.
Three Questions with Marco Herndon on Bridging Technology and Urban Planning for Natural Climate Solutions
Marco Herndon is a program associate with the Natural Climate Solutions (NCS) team at the Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI). He specifically manages the team’s partnerships with organizations in Latin America — with a focus on Peru and Colombia — at the intersection of climate change, technology, and environmental planning.
To introduce Marco, we asked him three questions about his previous work in the technology space and his aspirations with the NCS team.
You spent your early career in tech — why the transition to urban planning and the ESI? What did you learn in your tech career that is relevant to your role now?
My seven years in tech focused on leveraging technology to solve complex social challenges, particularly in terms of sustainable transportation. I became interested in planning because it offered a structured and systemic approach to thinking both conceptually, as well as spatially, about challenges. I also think planning is a rare resource in a complex, under-resourced world. Although my work in tech developed sustainable transit solutions through software and partnerships, I wanted to tackle these issues with more tools to influence tangible policy changes. While completing my Master in City Planning at MIT, I learned about the ESI through a practice-based class developing planning and design proposals to improve urban biodiversity in Colombia. The approach combined technology solutions with planning frameworks, which was intriguing to me, given my background.
The skills I learned in tech that are most relevant to my work now are stakeholder management and prioritization. At a tech company, prioritization is essential to scale a product, otherwise a company risks disorganization and engineers lose focus. In planning, it is very easy to quickly become overwhelmed by the challenges communities face, especially in terms of climate change. I also learned how to operate successfully on global teams with different cultures and communication styles, which is very useful given the international scope of our work.
What keeps you optimistic about the role of tropical forests in combating climate change?
The role of tropical forests in combating climate change is indispensable. Without them, we probably don’t have much of a fighting chance to sequester and eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere. We also know the fate of tropical forests is interconnected with neighboring ecosystems; for example, tropical glacial melt in Peru will likely impact the volume of water in the Amazon River and its tributaries.
I try to stay optimistic for a few reasons: (1) young people in countries with tropical forests are increasingly aware and engaged in environmental issues, and (2) there is increasing consensus that the challenges facing tropical forests are global and do not fall on one country. To take just one recent example: Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Brazil recently experienced terrible wildfires. We saw governments with different political ideologies share resources in the form of fire extinguishing helicopters and aid. Forests and the indigenous communities that call them home do not know geopolitical bounds. I hope that, when faced with the common challenge of climate change, governments around the world can come together and make real, tangible commitments to protecting tropical forests.
What excites you most about joining the NCS team?
I’m excited about the chance to combine technology and planning solutions to support communities vulnerable to climate change and deforestation in the Amazon. I view this work as essential to the broader climate puzzle, given that the Amazon is the largest remaining tropical forest in the world with abundant carbon sequestration and reduction potential. I also am excited about working with a new partner in Peru, which spans the second largest share of the Amazon after Brazil, which complements our experience while also offering a new focus.
To learn more about Marco’s work, you can email him at mherndon@mit.edu.
MIT’s Climate Change Engagement Program To Join the Institute’s Climate HQ
By: Grace Sawin, Co-op
MIT’s award-winning Climate Change Engagement Program has been integrated into MIT’s newly-formed Climate HQ.
The MIT Climate Change Engagement Program is an Institute-wide effort to empower the public with trusted, nonpartisan, scientifically-grounded information on climate change and its solutions. Home to a number of award-winning educational tools, including the MIT Climate Portal and MIT Climate Primer, the program has developed some of the world’s most-visited online resources on climate change.
After four years of growth at the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI), the program will now operate out of MIT Climate HQ, an office created under the Climate Project at MIT. Launched by President Sally Kornbluth in early 2024, the project represents an ambitious new model to marshal the Institute’s talent and resources to research, develop, deploy, and scale up serious solutions to help change the planet’s climate trajectory.
“The MIT Climate Change Engagement Program has, from its earliest days, worked with faculty and researchers across all of MIT,” says founding director Laur Hesse Fisher. “The move to Climate HQ formalizes the program’s critical role in MIT’s strategy to engage audiences beyond the campus, and its commitment to empowering the public with trusted, easy-to-understand information about climate change.”
The MIT Climate Change Engagement Program began in 2020 with the launch of the MIT Climate Portal, a key initiative of MIT’s Climate Action Plan to share “timely, science-based information about the causes and consequences of climate change – and what can be done to address it.” With the support of the ESI, the effort grew to include an award-winning digital primer on climate change, a podcast with tens of thousands of subscribers, a web portal packed with free resources, and a journalism fellowship that emphasizes local messengers.
As we move forward, we want to highlight the progress the program has made in each of these areas during its nearly four years of operation.
1. Climate Primer: a self-directed climate 101
The MIT ESI and MIT Open Learning collaborated with Dr. Kerry Emanuel, MIT Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Science and author of the celebrated book What We Know about Climate Change, to develop this online exploration of what scientists know about climate change and how they know it. The multimedia site features eleven short digital chapters and interactive features where readers can easily introduce themselves to climate science, risks, and solutions.
The primer is used by over 100 university and high school classrooms, and educational programs in the U.S. and Europe. In 2020, it won a Webby Award for best digital editorial feature.
2. TILclimate podcast: jargon-free climate explainers
The podcast TILclimate (Today I Learned: Climate) breaks down the science, technology, and policies behind climate change. In quick, 10-15 minute episodes, host Laur Hesse Fisher and writer Aaron Krol work with expert guests to explain critical climate change topics without jargon or politics. Over 30 episodes are also accompanied by an educator guide, designed to further student understanding of climate change, with a focus on solutions.
Over its six seasons, TILclimate has attracted over 20,000 active subscribers; has been recommended as a top climate podcast by The New York Times, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify; and won a Platinum AVA Digital Award.
Most important is its impact on listeners, who have shared how TILclimate has helped them grapple with climate change in their professional lives, speak knowledgeably about climate issues with friends and family, or even become part of their workplace training. As one listener said: “This is how I get my knowledge about climate science. It’s concise, easy to listen to, and I actually learn useful info every episode. Need to teach your mom or kid about climate change? Listen to this podcast.”
3. Climate Portal: easy-to-understand climate information from MIT experts and scientists
The MIT Climate Portal is one of the world’s most visited websites for information about climate change. Designed to inform and empower the climate-curious, the Climate Portal offers a wealth of free, public resources that are nonpartisan, easy-to-understand, and science-based.
The most popular section of the portal is the Ask MIT Climate series, where our MIT Climate Portal writing team answers readers’ climate questions with guidance from subject-matter experts at MIT. The sites’ explainers, written by scientists and experts at MIT and beyond, are quick, readable primers on important climate topics, from extreme weather to electric vehicles to renewable energy. The site also features MIT Action, Institute-wide news posts and events from over 20 MIT departments, labs, centers, and initiatives focused on climate research and action. To date, there are two bimonthly newsletters that readers can sign up for.
Since its launch in October 2020, two million readers have visited the portal, with over one million of them in 2023 alone. Approximately 50% of readers are international, reaching users from over 100 countries and solidifying its intended global audience. The MIT Climate Portal is now a top three Google search result for over 950 searches related to climate change.
4. Journalism Fellowship: supporting climate reporting in Americans’ backyards
The MIT Climate Change Engagement Program also runs the MIT Environmental Solutions Journalism Fellowship, launched in spring 2021. The fellowship supports freelance and staff journalists associated with U.S. local and regional newsrooms in creating major reporting projects that connect climate impacts and solutions to the concerns and perspectives of their audiences. Climate journalism is often limited to national news outlets, and although this coverage is essential, localizing climate reporting has proven to engage diverse audiences and drive community-based climate solutions. Our fellows have reported from local newsrooms in over a dozen states, including Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Louisiana, Kentucky, Arizona and West Virginia.
The fellowship’s third cohort is preparing for publication in fall 2024, with projects covering hydrogen production in Appalachia, U.S. carbon markets in Oregon, the energy transition in Utah’s coal country, and other topics related to the emerging low-carbon economy.
The MIT Climate Change Engagement Program’s managing editor, Aaron Krol, will assume leadership of the program as director Laur Hesse Fisher leaves her role in September 2024.
“It’s a very exciting time to be working on climate topics at MIT, as the Institute deepens its commitment to making a real-world impact on the course of climate change,” says Krol. “At MIT Climate HQ, our public engagement projects will now join the heart of that effort.”
To follow the publications from the MIT Climate Change Engagement Program and its journalism fellows, visit climate.mit.edu, subscribe to the bimonthly newsletter, and follow the program on LinkedIn.
Three Questions on Nature-Based Climate Solutions With ESI Research Affiliate Martin Camilo Pérez Lara
By: Sophia Apteker, Administrative and Communications Assistant
When I videocalled Martin Camilo Pérez Lara the other day to discuss his new position as a research affiliate of the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI), two canvas paintings hung simply on a tan wall behind him. The one on the left was long and rectangular, depicting a person cutting through a wispy forest. The one on the right was square. It showed a marine ecosystem, a person swirled in a sea of blue and green.
Martin grew up in a family of artists. Earlier in his life, he thought maybe he’d be an artist, too.
“When I started to make many murals, I became very interested in — and I started to paint — environmental issues: animals, ecosystems, natural forests, ecosystem processes,” Martin explained of his work. “Afterwards, I decided to explore creative opportunities in natural sciences, and I also really liked math. So with this mix, I decided to study forestry engineering.”
Martin has since become a forestry engineer with a master’s degree in international affairs. His impressive resume features high-level positions with the Ministry of Environment in Colombia, the World Bank in Mexico, the United Nations in Latin America, the Center for Clean Air Policy, and currently, the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) US.
At the ESI, he will play an active role in facilitating discussions with various actors in the carbon market chain — including local communities, national governments, market developers, and standards accreditors — to identify how and where improvements can be implemented so that quality and social justice are centered. The ultimate goal? Applying insights from his team’s well-rounded research to inform future laws, public policies, and projects that promote ecosystem protection while prioritizing the people who live there.
To introduce Martin, I asked him three questions about nature-based climate solutions.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Currently, you work for the WWF US. What is the connection between the work you do there and the work that you do for the ESI?
The WWF US is the umbrella for the time I am dedicating to MIT research. This is the place where I am building the knowledge and activities in different landscapes in the world.
The work that I am doing for WWF US is as a Director for the Forest Climate Solutions Impact and Monitoring Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) program, where we create a system to monitor impact in different landscapes, including Brazil, Madagascar, Mexico, Peru, and Vietnam. Additionally, we are developing new market approaches in Colombia and other Latin American countries and supporting the creation of environmental integrity criteria in the US and international instances.
In these landscapes, I help teams create the best approach to monitoring the impact that NBS will have at both local and international levels.
You’ve previously mentioned that a key highlight of your career has been creating and promoting Fair Deals as a management framework for carbon markets, and that these efforts have significantly improved the inclusivity and effectiveness of climate finance solutions. Can you explain what these solutions looked like before, if any, and what they’ve looked like since implementing Fair Deals?
The carbon markets and biodiversity credits — but especially the carbon markets because they are a mechanism with a longer history — have two main problems.
The first problem is that some of those who establish the baselines in the carbon markets lack environmental integrity or quality in their work. Consequently, they sometimes inflate the baselines to secure more credits. This results in a significant issue: absence of quality.
The second one is that the agreement between the breakout companies that you need to write the documents to certify the carbon obtained by the local communities actions — that is, the people who are living with the forest and can change or maintain the relationship with the forest to reduce deforestation or degradation — these agreements are not just or equitable regarding the community’s efforts.
The community performs the work in the field: they plant the trees, they protect the forest, they do almost everything. And the technical company — the private company — many of them make the negotiations to generate the certificates. To do this technical work, they take between 20% to 50% of their results, normally, during the duration of the projects, which is 20 to 30 years. That is tons and tons not just of carbon dioxide, but of money: money that should be implemented in more actions in the field; money that should been directly received by the communities. The quality and long-term operation of forest mitigation projects are of interest to both the communities and other market actors who seek a viable operation in the long term.
To address the first problem, I collaborated with Ministries of Environment and climate change commissions across Latin America, as well as market actors, to create and implement carbon accounting and traceability systems. Currently, I am focused on implementing models that adhere to environmental integrity criteria on a landscape scale.
To solve the second problem, which in my view is the most important, we created the “just or fair agreements” concept where we build the capabilities within local communities. In this new model, the community is the center. The people interacting with forests don’t need to accept inequitable agreements. This increases their possibility of maximizing investments related to climate change mitigation, improving local livelihoods.
Local communities are pivotal to the work that you do. Why is it important that these communities are prioritized?
The main reason is that I have a lot of empathy for local communities, their livelihoods, and their needs. I am not part of these communities, but I believe that their forestry governance is the key for stability and durability in long-term climate mitigation results.
The other issue is that if we don’t work with these communities — the people who live with the ecosystems — and if we don’t invest in their development plans, we will only implement a project that produces short-term results, after which we will return to the starting point. In climate terms, “returning to the starting point” means putting the planet at risk.
So, the communities’ power in the environmental markets must be asserted.
Celebrating the Challenge: The ESI at 10 Years
The ESI was established in May 2014, and we are now celebrating our ten-year anniversary. This brief note is not intended to capture in any comprehensive way all that we have accomplished during this span of time. Instead, it attempts to delineate highlights in our trajectory, especially as we look toward the next chapter.
At its inception, the desire for a commitment to address multiple challenges facing the planet – climate change chief among many – had been in discussion at MIT for some time. A group of professors and researchers at the Institute had met regularly for years and discussed, wrote proposals and advocated to senior administration for an initiative focused on the environment. By way of their sustained efforts, the ESI was inaugurated with Prof. Susan Solomon as the founding director. I took over as director 18 months later in October 2015.
The ESI was launched with two first-order objectives: to establish a minor in environment and sustainability available to all MIT undergraduates and to launch a research effort across diverse topics in the environment, sustainability and climate change. The research portfolio was founded with two rounds of seed grants to multidisciplinary teams across departments at MIT. Today, ESI research is comprised of six programs including Mining and the Circular Economy; Natural Climate Solutions; Climate Justice; Cities and Climate Change; Plastics and the Environment; and Arts, Media and AI.
The ESI also created and expanded a major effort to engage the public and communicate all aspects of climate change beyond MIT. We refer to the fruits of this effort as the “three Ps” – the Climate Portal, the Climate Primer and the TILClimate podcast.
All three legs of the ESI – research, education and engagement – have become instrumental at MIT in offering varied and rich experiences to students, opportunities for research to the MIT faculty and understanding and learning to those beyond our campus and worldwide. Listing and describing all that we have done since our launch would constitute a very, very long article. I will simply note there is much to celebrate about the past ten years.
First-year MIT undergraduates at an ESI event featuring US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in 2017. Photo courtesy of Stephanie McPherson.
I will also note that there is much left to do – more than many would have predicted ten years ago. While the rate of growth of global emissions has decreased, emissions are still increasing, 1.3% in 2022 and 1.1% in 2023, amounting to 410 million tonnes to a new record high of 37.4 billion tonnes. Global biodiversity loss – a much more difficult challenge to assess – likely increased greatly in the ten years since the ESI started operating. In the Living Planet Report 2022, the World Wildlife Fund asserts that global wildlife populations have been reduced by 69% since 1970. And recently, the Stockholm Resilience Center announced that six of nine Planetary Boundaries have been breached and are now at high risk.
While I could go on in this sobering way with many other markers of the enormous challenge that has grown ever more complex and seemingly difficult these past ten years, I risk creating ever greater despair that may contribute to ever greater stasis. In fact, for many years now there has been a concerted effort to adopt a decidedly positive and forward-looking attitude toward our environmental challenges. Many in the scientific, policy, business and advocacy communities have been focusing on communicating positive perspectives that are intended to drive action and momentum, from Katharine Hayhoe’s regular messages as Chief Scientist for the Nature Conservancy to Hannah Ritchie’s climate optimistic book, Not the End of the World.
I have been doing the same for some portion of the communications I engage in, whether speaking to an audience, writing articles or otherwise discussing climate change, biodiversity loss and other environmental issues. Yet, when I have done so I experience an almost imperceptible internal pause; it feels like something of a discontinuity of belief in my own words. Can we really be as optimistic as some, including myself, believe we should be?
This pause becomes a full-on break when I contend with messages that use a forward-thinking and self-consciously positive perspective to intentionally or unintentionally diminish the challenge and open the door to greenwashing. Can we really continue to expect “natural” gas – an extremely powerful greenhouse gas – to be managed responsibly and act as a “bridge” fuel to decarbonization? How much longer will people erroneously believe that wood for fuel (mostly in the form of wood pellets) is a carbon neutral or negative emissions heat source? Have we learned our lesson of rampant mismanagement and outright fraud in the carbon offset market? Does the current fossil fuel industry media blitz on carbon capture achieve anything more than open up a new tactic for climate action delay? This list of questions about miseducation and misinformation could go on and on.
Eight and a half years ago when I agreed to be the director of the ESI we used the slogan, “The Time is Now” to focus attention not on 2100 or 2050, but on research and actions that can deliver meaningful results now, or as soon as possible. Ten years later the time is still now, actually more now than ever.
This is where the ESI has landed, between the need for active optimism in light of enduring and often purposefully exacerbated challenges and the urgency for actions now. Frankly, we have no other pathway than to endeavor to expand our work and engage deeply in solutions across environmental challenges. The planet and life on Earth don’t really care whether we are optimistic or not. Our next chapter has to be as much about results as the first chapter has been. And now with the announcement of The Climate Project, the ESI is positioned as a key asset across research, education and engagement to accelerate the creation and deployment of solutions for best results as soon as possible.
In the early days of the ESI, we also had another oft-repeated mantra that went something like the following: “Possibly the most important and durable solution we can deliver to the world are a steady stream of well-educated and deeply motivated students.” This, because students leave MIT and continue their journey for decades to come. What they do in the world, hopefully motivated by a sense of accomplishment on environmental topics while at MIT, could be one of the more important game changers we can offer. I believe this more than ever because since ESI’s earliest days students tell me how much they value the initiative.
So, I leave you with a few words from a former MIT undergraduate from the class of 2020 who has been working in wind energy since she graduated. I had not heard from her for a couple of years. She wrote the following to me just a few days ago: “The initiative had a monumental impact on my time at MIT…and I’m glad it continues to be a resource for students trying to figure out how they could possibly contribute.”
J.E. Fernández, Director MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative
May 31, 2024
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Concluding the ESI’S Two-Year Pilot Project in Mocoa, Colombia
By: Danielle Baez, Research Assistant at Pratt Institute
In 2017, a devastating landslide in Mocoa, Colombia caused the death of over 300 people and affected 22,000 more, including over 2,900 indigenous people belonging to nine different communities, according to Mocoa’s reconstruction Plan CONPES 3904. Corpoamazonia, the regional environmental authority for the region, has estimated that approximately 30% of the urban area is still located in high-risk areas, as portions of the displaced population have not been resettled and efforts to build an early warning system remain limited.
Following a sequence of planning workshops organized in partnership with MIT DUSP, the ESI partnered with the aforementioned Corpoamazonia (Corporación Autónoma Regional para el Desarrollo de la Amazonia), Pratt Institute’s Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment, the Colombian Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, and the Latin American Development Bank (CAF), among others, to launch the pilot project, “Drones for Equitable Climate Change Adaptation” (DECCA) in 2022. This pilot project aimed to develop an intervention model using an asset-based approach to community-based planning and participatory risk management with the development of technological tools for landslide monitoring.
The participatory monitoring model works through robust stakeholder engagement and the construction of a Community Researchers Network (CRN) that gives seven community leaders from varied backgrounds a seat at the table, with the ability to participate and drive much of the outreach strategy and community involvement with decision making. It pioneers new applications for unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) and integrates machine learning to process landslide susceptibility data. Ultimately, the goal of this work is to strengthen the community’s planning and risk management capacity and to build technology-enhanced strategies to monitor and respond to climate change impacts in areas facing structural challenges.
In March 2024 — after months of testing drone flights to map the middle part of the Rio Mulato watershed — the project partners convened in Mocoa to present the results of the pilot. Over the course of three days, the team facilitated and engaged in a series of workshops and public meetings to reflect on the use of the information to generate adaptation indicators and to introduce the prototype of the landslide susceptibility visualization platform to the community. Moreover, after gaining insight from this first phase, the team started delineating work areas for a potential second phase and its possibilities, including how to create a data service for financial institutions that could support data collection efforts in the future. Hosted by Corpoamazonia, the delegation included members from the ESI and project partners from Pratt Institute’s Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment, as well as representatives from CAF Development Bank of Latin America, the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, and the Community Researchers Network.
Combining technology development and community-based planning
While the project is ambitious both in its technological development and in its community engagement efforts, getting the drone in the hands of the local pilots and determining the ideal parameters for the data collection was not an easy feat. One of the primary reasons drones were chosen as the mechanism for mapping the watershed is the difficulty of the environment itself. The drone has to fly below the constant cloud cover characteristic to the Andean-Amazon piedmont region, but just above the dense forest cover in order to accurately create digital terrain models. It took an enormous amount of collaboration and calibration between teams in Mocoa; Bogotá; Cambridge, Mass.; New York City; and Panamá City to build the local technical capacities to fly the drones while honing in on exactly what speed, height, and even flight patterns were optimal to capture the highest quality crucial data in the steep slopes near Mocoa.
A staff member from Corpoamazonia’s data collection team works in the field. Photo credit: Duber Rosero
The project also explored different machine learning methods to better understand what factors most heavily contribute to landslide susceptibility in Mocoa and to develop the most accurate landslide susceptibility model based on collected data and key hydrological, geological, and geomorphological features. While a variety of machine learning models are still being tested and data continues to be integrated, a first model resulted in an accuracy upwards of 92% for landslide susceptibility monitoring.
”This model has potential applications in informing urban planning, including the identification of almost real-time changes in susceptibility, the identification of areas of priority for direct intervention and mitigation works, and the generation of data and outputs for the early warning system,” explained Maritza Garzon, project coordinator at Corpoamazonia. “But this requires increasing the coverage and frequency of the data collection efforts. The model is also determined by the availability of a detailed inventory of historical landslide data which can be hard to come by, robust local meteorological and seismic data, and the quality and resolution of the data collected, which can be difficult [to access] due to the environmental challenges of the cloud cover and density of the vegetation.”
Beyond the technical component, the project has devoted equal efforts to community engagement and strengthening local capacities for risk understanding and management, as exemplified through the aforementioned CRN.
“Technology development can only bring us so far,” said Juan Camilo Osorio, associate professor at Pratt’s Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment, and founding partner and co-investigator of the project. “At the heart of the project, DECCA has launched a Community Researchers Network to acknowledge and position grassroots leadership to guide the creation of a genuine community-based planning and risk management process. We are grateful for the opportunity to help strengthen local technical capacity to investigate, communicate, and imagine opportunities to address the risk of landslides and inundation in Mocoa.”
The CRN has been working to strengthen the alliance between the institutional and academic entities and the community of Mocoa itself to raise awareness on the landslide susceptibility and the risks and opportunities around landslide monitoring and community action.
As part of this visit, the CRN convened, presented the work, and co-facilitated a series of local events, including a public meeting and Q&A session; an adaptation indicators workshop with the municipality and other local, regional, and and national entities; and a roundtable with academic institutions to further understand how a partnership could expand opportunities and refine the understanding of landslide susceptibility in the area.
“The CRN has emerged as the driving force behind outreach and impact, increasing the interest of the community to engage with more sophisticated data in their understanding of risk,” said Lucy Milena Castillo Landazury, CRN member, during the public meeting. “This active engagement has guided the project, and hopefully subsequent planning decisions, that will make Mocoa more resilient to future disasters.”
Lucy Castillo, member of the CRN, presents the prototype susceptibility map at a public meeting.
Photo Credit: Danielle Baez
Envisioning the next phase
As a pilot project, this work represented a first attempt at mobilizing the expertise of the academic community and financial resources from the Global Environmental Facility through the CAF Development Bank of Latin America to promote knowledge of landslide risk awareness through a deeply participatory process in a context of contention, distrust, and high climate risks.
Despite encountering numerous obstacles, the team has gleaned invaluable insights from this first phase that have provided the proof of concept needed to define priorities for a second phase.
“Looking at the future of the project, we envision to build on the strengthened data collection capacities to start cultivating local data processing capabilities and improving the landslide susceptibility models with more frequent updates and broader coverage; to continue to empower the Community Researchers Network with greater autonomy; to enhance collaboration between technical elements and community stakeholders, alongside official advisors and newfound allies; and to broaden access to diverse risk information while enhancing interoperability with early warning systems” said Marcela Angel, research program director at the ESI.
This future phase could be focused on strengthening technical and technological capabilities for landslide susceptibility monitoring, developing actions that strengthen the capacities of vulnerable communities in Mocoa for risk preparedness and nature-based risk reduction actions, disseminating risk information with a focus on equitable access, and leveraging the technological infrastructure and network of partners for the implementation of nature-based solutions for climate adaptation.
The trip concluded with a workshop in Bogotá focused on opportunities to involve microfinance institutions and how to use landslide susceptibility data to catalyze financial inclusion for the region, and possibly fund the technological and human capacity that has been built out as a result of this project. Taken together, these actions set up a pathway for the continuation of a partnership that has been bridging the gaps in technology development and community engagement for climate risk monitoring in Colombia.
The DECCA project is supported by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of Colombia, with the economic support of the Global Environmental Facility and implementation through CAF Development Bank of Latin America. Questions about DECCA can be directed to Marcela Angel at marcelaa@mit.edu.
How Do You Bridge Divides in Climate Change Conversations? A Q+A with Ben Stillerman, Deb Roy, and Laur Hesse Fisher
By: Sophia Apteker, Administrative and Communications Assistant
During Earth Month, the internet has been abuzz with a spectrum of conversations about the current and future state of our planet. And while the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication has categorized the majority of Americans as Alarmed or Concerned about global warming, roughly a third are still Disengaged, Doubtful, and Dismissive. This begs the question: How do we catalyze the latter audience to recognize what the climate fuss is all about and mobilize them for action?
On Tuesday, April 30, the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative will be partnering with the MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric & Planetary Sciences (EAPS) to present a film screening of True False, Hot Cold. The documentary was shot in a county of Utah with the least belief in climate change in America. It weaves vignettes from farmers, ranchers, cowboys, coal miners, and other county residents together to build bridges — not divides — between people who have very different identities and beliefs.
The screening will be accompanied by a discussion with Ben Stillerman, filmmaker and founder of the Social Cohesion Lab; Deb Roy, faculty director of the MIT Center for Constructive Communication; and Laur Hesse Fisher, program director at MIT Climate and founder of the MIT Environmental Solutions Journalism Fellowship. These panelists, who are actively incorporating these bridge-building values and approaches into their work, will also have an open conversation with the audience.
This event is sponsored by the MIT Climate Nucleus.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
1. Ben and Laur: each of your projects — Ben with the film, Laur with the journalism fellowship — attempt to connect with hard-to-reach communities on climate change. Why is this topic important to you?
BS: Well here’s a simple way of thinking about that question, and it’s something I ask people who feel uncomfortable about giving airtime to people with wildly different opinions about a topic as big as climate change: How’s it working out for us right now, when we’re not able to talk to communities who disagree with us or are different from us? Doesn’t seem to be working that well, does it? The feeling of polarized animosity has stalled progress, so although a rural community might have different ideas about how to deal with climate, I think that the social value of connecting with them is greater than the risk of not hearing from them entirely.
LHF: Climate change has become a politically polarized issue in the United States. Yet a country free of carbon pollution requires the support of Americans across political parties and across the country – in the voting booth and also, critically, in the city halls and neighborhoods where the energy transition is happening. Still, opportunity exists, as an increasing number of Republicans, especially young Republicans, say that they are worried about climate change and many support the same climate solutions as Democrats. Building bipartisan support for climate solutions is within our grasp, but we need to approach it thoughtfully and humbly.
2. It seems like people might be hesitant to share their opinions if they don’t know how their words are going to be used. With this in mind, Ben, how did you convince people to let you interview them for the documentary?
BS: This might seem counterintuitive, but on big, controversial topics, I’ve found that people are eager to have their voices heard, especially when given the opportunity to share their beliefs in the context of their life experience. Everyone likes to feel that their story is worth hearing. In practice for our film, I showed up one afternoon at the Main Street gas station, introduced myself, and asked if people knew anyone worth talking to about some of these topics. Once I had done one interview and proved I wasn’t out to belittle or trick people, they were happy to suggest someone else worth chatting with, and because I now had the added validation from the first person, the door was already half open.
3. Deb, your expertise lies within using human-machine systems to develop deep systematic listening, which has applications in large scale social media ecosystems. What could we learn by using these listening techniques in the climate space?
DR: Our approach brings together facilitated dialogue, sensemaking, and digital technology to surface patterns of experience – rooted in personal stories – rather than opinions. This form of listening fosters a deeper understanding of what people value and how those values intersect with climate issues.
For example, through The Museum for the UN’s Global We initiative, we collected hundreds of conversations in 25 locations around the world and shared underheard local perspectives on climate directly with leaders at the UN COP28 summit. One of the questions that was asked was: “Imagine that the quietest voices on climate change were heard – what are they saying?” We also engaged 25 young people around the world to make sense of these conversations, building a transparent youth-owned process that activated and empowered local community members around climate.
4. Deb and Laur, we need to engage millions of people on climate change, yet in a way that’s personal to them. How can we effectively build connections at scale?
DR: We need to create opportunities for people to engage in meaningful personal actions. Meaningful because they are clearly connected to something bigger. Personal because they are actions that an individual has the power and agency to perform. In our work we seek to create scalable systems for dialogue and listening that create opportunities for people in communities from all walks of life to organize, design, facilitate, and analyze conversations they host with people in their trusted networks. Our main focus is to help communities build the capacity they need to surface and make sense of the voices of their peers using tools that are designed to empower them to analyze and interpret their own data.
LHF: Local news is the outlet that Americans rely on and trust the most, and studies show that localizing climate change is an effective way to open perspectives on the issue. Yet climate journalism is often limited to national and specialty news outlets. In order to engage Americans where climate change is disputed or underreported, we need to make it local — told by local messengers and centering local issues and values. This is the mission underlying the MIT Environmental Solutions journalism fellowship and a way we see we can help scale conversations about climate change in the parts of the country where it greatly matters.
5. What kinds of media do you consume and how does that shape your work?
BS: Is there a word for being addicted to Reddit? That’s what I am. I really love the weird feeling of always being one click away from devoted communities of people posting dozens of articles a day about things I sometimes totally disagree with, alongside reviews of lawn mowers or traffic reports from India. Although Reddit is often wrong, angry, or opinionated, it’s almost always passionate and fun, so it’s where I get a lot of the ideas which interest me for further investigation.
DR: I try to read news sources across a range of political perspectives, together with some news aggregators and public commentators that I trust.
LHF: This is a little cheesy but the media that is most effective for me are one-on-one conversations about climate change with people who don’t see what all the fuss is about. I learn what they’re hearing about climate change and solutions, what their concerns and frustrations are, and, when I can, where they get their information. It’s an incredible source of learning.
6. Who do each of you look to for inspiration?
BS: Two of my all-time heroes are Studs Terkel and Frederick Wiseman. Terkel, in his oral histories, was able to use deeply human narratives to ground his examination of massive topics like war or work. Wiseman, in his documentaries, is brave enough to let the people and institutions he profiles speak for themselves, without letting his own editorializing overshadow them.
DR: I am lucky to have an incredible network of mentors, advisors, colleagues, students, and family members who are constant sources of inspiration and who push me to aim higher while keeping grounded in real and practical progress.
LHF: Our journalism fellow alums are smart, thoughtful and committed to the audiences they serve. Their passion for tackling these issues with care and excellence is a great source of inspiration. I greatly admire the work and perspectives of Prof. Arlie Russell Hochschild, author of Strangers in their Own Land, and Prof. Katharine Hayhoe, a celebrated climate scientist and communicator. What brings me the most inspiration are the millions of people all around the world who are working boldly on reducing global emissions in their part of the world.
7. What kinds of projects can people expect to see from the Social Cohesion Lab (from which the True False, Hot Cold film emerged), the MIT Center for Constructive Communication, and this year’s journalism fellowship?
BS: We’re focused on two things: First, we’re planning on telling more stories about people and places with different ideas about right and wrong, true and false, in an effort to bridge divides through documentary. Second, we’re running “Depolarization Day” events using our documentaries, alongside guest speakers and a taught curriculum, as an engaging way to teach the skills of bridging to college students and interested communities.
DR: We have ambitious plans to advance and scale tools and methods for dialogue, listening, and deliberative decision-making. A first opportunity for some of this work will be right here at MIT where we are planning the launch of a dialogue and listening program for our undergraduate students this fall.
LHF: We’re accepting fellowship applications until April and the fellow stories will start dropping this summer! I’ll be reposting all the stories here, and you can also follow our media or sign up for our newsletter for updates. You can learn about the incredible impact of previous fellows.
8. What is one tip you have for people who want to respectfully engage in a discourse with someone that holds a different belief than them?
BS: Everyone holds their own belief with as much internal logic as you hold yours; no one is walking around thinking their beliefs are built on shabby reasoning. Remembering this really helps keep an open heart when someone holds a position that you think is totally wrong. And stay humble, because of the thousands of beliefs you hold big and small, the chance that you’re right about them all is almost certainly zilch.
DR: Start by asking them to share their personal experiences about the topic or issue rather than their opinions, be willing to do the same for them, and commit to truly listening.
LHF: I love Ben and Deb’s replies! I’ll add, be curious, find shared values, and set appropriate expectations. Regarding that last one, I wouldn’t expect that you will be able to change someone’s mind. But if you come out of the conversation understanding their values and perspectives — and they understand and respect yours — that is a big win.
Register for the ‘True False, Hot Cold’: Film Screening & Discussion here.
A Refreshed MIT Climate Primer to Better Serve Students, Educators, and the “Climate Curious”
This month, the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative launched the first major update to Climate Science, Risk & Solutions, an online introduction to the science of climate change that won the Webby Award for Best Editorial Feature with its 2020 debut.
The Climate Science, Risk & Solutions website, also called the MIT Climate Primer, is an interactive digital journey written by Dr. Kerry Emanuel, professor emeritus of Atmospheric Science at MIT and a celebrated climate communicator and hurricane researcher. The eleven chapters are punctuated with quizzes, interactive graphics, and videos that allow high school, college, and adult learners with no prior background in climate science to explore how scientists came to realize that the climate is changing, and, with those evolved findings, what actions people can take today to adapt to and mitigate the impacts.
“At MIT’s climate communications program, we often get questions about how scientists know what they know about climate change,” says Laur Hesse Fisher, director of the climate communications and engagement program at the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative. “In this Primer, Dr. Emanuel walks with readers, step-by-step, to unpack the scientific community’s emergent understanding of how the Earth’s climate is changing, with a level of skepticism and clarity that learners crave and deserve.”
As of this month, the Climate Primer is now informed by four more years of global climate research, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth comprehensive assessment report (AR6) on the state of climate science. The updated Primer includes more precise estimates of future global warming and its effects on global temperatures and extreme weather events, important advances in climate modeling, new actions taken around the world to adapt to the impacts of climate change, and the latest data about the pace at which clean energy and other critical climate solutions are being deployed.
Left: a figure which shows three warming scenarios with varying levels of carbon mitigation, from when Climate Science, Risk & Solutions was first published in 2020. Right: the updated 2024 figure showing the latest modeling of climate scenarios, as well as how it compares to warming of the deep past.
The updated Primer is also enhanced by linked resources for further learning, drawing on four years of publications at MIT Climate explaining key climate topics and answering frequently asked questions about climate change. The other interactive elements were created in conjunction with MIT Open Learning to include best-in-show multimedia elements to reach all kinds of learners, including the “climate curious,” who are newly interested in climate change or in a new climate topic, and are searching for easy-to-understand answers from trustworthy sources.
To date, the MIT Climate Primer has been used by over 100 schools, universities, and educational sites — like ShareMyLesson, Climate Interactive, and EdX.
“The pace of climate science has never been faster,” says Hesse Fisher. “And the same is true for efforts to reduce climate pollution. It’s critical for students and adult learners to have the latest understanding of the predicted impacts of rising climate pollution – and how our actions now make all the difference in creating a clean, prosperous, and beautiful future.”