macabanner2025

MIT Campus

Climate Change Impacts

MIT alumni community in the Boston area

Out of over 170,000 MIT alumni in total, 12,575 live within 50 mile radius of Boston, and 22,576 live in the state of Massachusetts. These alumni like other residents are affected by the direct impacts of climate change in the area. Among the impacts are: (1) air pollution from wildfires promoted by widespread droughts in North America which have many serious health impacts on outdoor workers, the elderly and immunocompromised, and children; and (2) regular flooding from both more intense storms and progressive sea level rise.

For more information, see Cambridge's Sustainability Dashboard and  Boston's Climate Action Plan, and tabs below for resources, statements and actions from MIT and MACA.

Boston-SLR-6ft-NOAA
Climate Project at MIT
MIT launched its $75 million Climate Project in 2023, with an announcement to alumni in MACA's conversation with President Sally Kornbluth in March 2024. This project is a whole-of-MIT approach to address the challenges of global climate change. The stated goal is for MIT to rise to become "one of the world’s most prolific and collaborative sources of technological, behavioral, and policy solutions - solutions that will change the expected trajectory of global climate outcomes for the better." 

The goals of the Climate Project include: 


-Decarbonize energy and industry with affordable low-emissions electricity and fuels and technological and policy innovations. 


-"Restore" the atmosphere while protecting the land and oceans and ecosystems by removing, managing, and storing greenhouse gases.


-Empower frontline communities and support the world’s most vulnerable populations with technologies, finance, and policies for relief and resilience. 


-Build and adapt healthy, resilient cities.


-Invent policy approaches and new institutions and incentives for rapid scaling and decision support tools.


-Develop unconventional solutions to climate change.

Climate Project at MIT
MIT Fast Forward Climate Action Plan
MIT announced a updated  climate action plan in 2021, named "Fast Forward: MIT's Climate Action Plan for the Decade".
This plan proposes that the campus:

-Go as far as we can, as fast as we can, with the tools and methods we have now.

-Invest in, invent, and develop new tools and promote the new institutions and policies needed to deploy them rapidly, wisely, and equitably.

-Educate and empower the next generation, who are inheriting this problem and must ultimately solve it.
Fast Forward Plan
MACA's Campus Decarbonization Plan
MACA has a campus decarbonization plan. Click for details.

MACA Campus Decarbonization Plan
Other Campus Climate Statements and Actions

VPR Maria Zuber Update on MIT's Climate Action Plan - Spring 2019