# MIT Climate Grand Challenges

Data: 11-01-2025 21:42:25

## Lista de Vídeos

1. [Computing our climate future](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Itglnvga5u4)
2. [Developing electricity-powered, low-emissions alternatives to carbon-intensive industrial processes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4hHQVKXzwg)
3. [Preparing for a New World of Weather and Climate Extremes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXIB8bvrxy8)
4. [Revolutionizing Agriculture with Low Emissions, Resilient Crops](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-oYHrGhc8Q)
5. [Reinventing Climate Change Adaptation: The Climate Resilience Early Warning System (CREWSnet)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBFc0JDb6TI)
6. [MIT Climate Grand Challenges Live Event](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSo2BXAQRds)

## Transcrições

### Computing our climate future
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Itglnvga5u4

Idioma: en

Climate information is
really needed everywhere.
The challenge is that, you
know, there's a lot of climate
change information out there.
It's not necessarily in a form that's
really useful and usable to, to
stakeholders in the ways that reflect
the most advanced computational efforts.
We need to improve our climate models,
to make them more robust, better match
data, and to address uncertainty.
I see a lot of opportunity in
improving our understanding of this.
We want to create a tool that allows
stakeholder communities to make
the best decisions based on the
best science that we have today.
In principle, what a climate model
does is it's a series of equations and
calculates how the climate will evolve
under different kinds of scenarios.
You want information that you can act on.
For example, they'll give you a prediction
on what is the likelihood of rain tomorrow
and that's information that you act on.
You can decide not to go on a hike.
If the probability is
90%, or you go for a hike
If the probability is 10%, maybe
you bring an umbrella and that's it.
We don't have the same kind of system
for climate simulation, where the
climate models are very difficult to use.
They're not custom tailored
to be used by stakeholders
that have to make a decisions.
The unique thing about our approach
compared to some of the existing
climate information is, is those
outputs will be really flexible.
To make progress on this promise
you see you need people from
different community coming together
We have teams across MIT that work really
directly with industry we'll partner,
with people who are using results of, of
climate information on the ground, making
sure that their most relevant and useful.
MIT is at the forefront
of computational advances.
So MIT should fill that gap and allow
that interaction between stakeholder
and climate science community to make,
tools create tools that can be used
for actionable decisions like weather
forecast allow you to decide what to
do for a hike, because if we don't do
that, essentially we are facing climate
change without being prepared for it.
We want to show that you can
create a software like that.
We want to show that that is possible
and what kind of infrastructure
you need to make it happen.
There are substantial advances that have
to happen in order to make this work.
And we're confident that we can do this.
We really have the right team in place.
We have the support of the MIT
behind us and we have the capability.

---

### Developing electricity-powered, low-emissions alternatives to carbon-intensive industrial processes
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4hHQVKXzwg

Idioma: en

If you look at the way that policy
develops around issues such as climate
change, the thing that often holds
it up is the absence of alternatives.
And so what I see as a big part of our job
is to provide those viable alternatives.
Our project aims to decarbonize industry.
So there are numerous products, of
course, that one can try to decarbonize
and we have chosen to focus on four
key products, cement, steel, ammonia,
and ethylene, which contribute
about half the industrial emission.
This is a huge problem in the
context of global warming, right?
33% of CO2 emissions coming from industry.
And half of that is associated with
only four products is a big problem
in the context of global warming.
Each of these industries were
developed at a time when fossil fuels
were the lowest cost form of energy.
And the technologies to
decarbonize that industry.
Have not been developed
and implemented at scale.
So there is a technology gap
to address that motivates us
towards an important problem.
We are proposing in the Center to
use electricity to help decarbonize.
The widespread availability of this very
low cost electricity gives us a vector
by which to reinvent these industries.
I'm a material scientist.
And as a material scientist, I
always believe that materials
properties can be improved.
You know I've been, for several
years now working on cement.
You know this is Tim the Beaver made
out of a decarbonized cement, and here
we've, you know, uh, electrochemically
processed the raw materials that go
into this in such a way that we can
easily capture the CO2 and decrease
the carbon footprint of cement.
We are lucky to be at MIT because
we can bring together multiple
disciplines that are needed to
address this very challenging problem.
We have the experts, but, but what
we need to do is build a broad based
coalition, not only the students and
postdocs and researchers, but also
reaching out to external stakeholders.
These cannot be laboratory curiosities.
It's a fertile field for scientific
innovation that could be guiding
the engineering of technology that
motivates me and my colleagues.
If there is any place on the planet
that can achieve the kinds of
goals that we've set out in the
Climate Grand Challenges, it's MIT.

---

### Preparing for a New World of Weather and Climate Extremes
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXIB8bvrxy8

Idioma: en

The climate is warming and
that's affecting the weather
we experience from day to day.
We have been taking resources from the
planet and returning a lot of pollution.
The way that we have been mismanaging
those effects has really created a
number of effects in the atmosphere that
are changing extreme weather patterns.
We have to adapt our cities
to these changing events.
And so we need more accessible
tools for everybody to adapt.
At the same time we need to transition
to renewable energy resources.
There's really no shortage
of solar energy, if you think
about the solar energy resource
and the wind energy resource.
You know, they can supply many times
the energy demand that we have as
human societies here on this planet.
We need to have really
good risk assessments.
The models we have of the
atmosphere in particular have
really improved a lot recently.
We use computational models to assess
the risk today, and we can use the
same models to assess the risks
going forward as the climate changes.
All climate change is local.
Where things really start to get bad
is not the mean temperature, it's the
extremes; the heat waves, the wildfires.
We have a great team that brings
together scientists, engineers,
and the MIT Urban Risk Lab.
So I think that combination,
working together can achieve a lot
more than they could separately.
A lot of the communities that suffer the
most often don't have their voices heard.
And so we want to find a way where through
these workshops, we are able to capture
all of the voices and really understand
what the issues are in each place.
We shouldn't just be aiming to recreate
the resilience and some robustness of
the power system that we have today.
We should really be aiming
to do better than that.
MIT would be a great place to train
students and young scientists in this
area who can then go on to make further
breakthroughs and really help society.
I think we can make the world
a better place, I really do.

---

### Revolutionizing Agriculture with Low Emissions, Resilient Crops
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-oYHrGhc8Q

Idioma: en

So agriculture is obviously incredibly
important to all of our lives.
For all the benefit it brings,
there's also a huge amount of
environmental impact of agriculture.
There really is this urgency that
we have to take solutions and start
really trying to implement them.
We're approaching the
challenge in a couple of ways.
One is to systematically go through
where the greenhouse gas emissions are
coming from in agriculture and then
find technological solutions to that.
The other issue that we're trying to
address is to either engineer crops
or the microbes that are associated
with crops, so that they're more
resilient to the types of climate
change that we expect to see.
Many solutions for climate resilience
in crops already exist in nature.
They just exist in
species that we don't eat.
I've learned in this species
over here, it's particularly
resistant to this fungus.
So I'm going to take the gene that
I know is responsible and put it
in this crop plant and make an
organism that is more resilient.
So the future we're imagining is that
instead of all of that mechanized
transport, instead of all of those
chemicals that are being sprayed
in order to keep plants safe and
make them grow, we instead use the
biology that's natural in the soil.
Uh, we use the plants themselves and
the benefits of genetic engineering in
order to have it where they can feed
themselves from the air and they can
protect themselves from pests and other
stresses that may arise, so that we have
to have fewer interventions, uh, as
part of the food production process,
ultimately leading to a greener industry.
So one of the things that we're pursuing
is to be able to understand how we can
translate some of the results that we get
in the lab here to different economies
around the world, so that we can take
a bacteria that enhances crop growth
and be able to see how it performs
in different regions of the world,
including Africa and Southeast Asia.
I have two kids and my daughter who's
10 is very worried about climate change.
And so I'm looking forward to be able
to say, "oh, we're actually doing
something in my lab about that."

---

### Reinventing Climate Change Adaptation: The Climate Resilience Early Warning System (CREWSnet)
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBFc0JDb6TI

Idioma: en

When we think of climate change, there
are two main issues: how do we mitigate
climate change and how do we adapt
to it if it's going to happen anyway?
The climate grand challenge process
that MIT is going through right
now is the perfect opportunity to
really look at the different facets
at MIT and synthesize them together
into a single unified initiative.
CREWSnet is a capability that
is empowering local communities
to be resilient and proactively
adapt to climate change.
The specific challenge that the project
is trying to address is to reinvent how we
adapt to climate change in locations and
within communities that are going to have
to adapt to some level of climate change.
What we're doing here is bringing regional
climate modeling and socioeconomic
impact forecasting and working closely
with partners on the ground, adaptation
strategies that are appropriate for
the communities where people live
and where local governments need
to make decisions about resilience.
I'm with MIT Lincoln laboratory.
So we're an off-campus
research laboratory.
We create a system, you create a prototype
of something that should exist and should
be more widely used and you get it into
the field, you get it into an environment
where it can be used so that you can
iterate on that and understand here's our
initial design, how can we make it better?
My group specializes in developing
regional climate models.
Models that are tailored and designed
to be able to project impacts of climate
change at regional and local scales.
We have a wonderful team
that we're working with our
partner BRAC, which is an NGL.
BRAC as an organization has existed
very nearly as long as the nation
of Bangladesh has been independent.
They have a strong cultural connection
to the country and to the people.
When we were looking for organizations
that MIT should partner with,
BRAC stood out as having such a
close connection to the people.
They seemed like a natural fit.
I think the biggest benefits will
be to people in the most climate
vulnerable regions of the world.
Thinking about places like Bangladesh,
places like Africa, this capability
is extensible and can be used anywhere
once it's developed to its full measure.
Myself sitting here and the folks
around me, where we occupy a position
of privilege where we have access
to information, but there are many
folks around the world that don't
have access to the same resources.
I think it's important that
we find ways to share that
information in an accessible way.
We think that it's urgent to think
of those groups, to think of those
communities and to help them prepare
for a challenge that's going to impact
them and impact them significantly.
This is very important to the MIT
community, to help disadvantaged
communities adapt to climate change.
It is really gratifying to see the
recognition of, of the idea and how
important it is, and to have the
institute behind it as, as a broader
institution and promoting it in this way.

---

### MIT Climate Grand Challenges Live Event
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSo2BXAQRds

Idioma: en

immense and growing challenges 
to the world around us.
>> It demands big ideas.
>> Immediate action.
>> And willingness to take 
risk.
>> Climate grand challenges is 
the whole of MIT effort. 
>> To develop high impact 
climate solutions. 
>> To the toughest climate 
problems.
>> And bring them to the world 
as fast as possible.
>> With the extraordinary work 
of our five flagship projects. 
>> 22 teams. 
>> And the whole MIT research 
community. 
>> We can change the trajectory
of humankind in our planet but 
inspire others to join us.
>> Please welcome President 
Rafael Reif.
[Applause]
>> good morning, good morning.
On behalf of everyone, everyone
involved in the MIT climate 
grand challenges program, 
welcome aboard.
We're absolutely delighted to 
have you with us as we 
introduce a five flagship 
projects to the world.
I'm grateful to the many people
who helped create this showcase
event including our outstanding
panel interests as well as all 
of the MIT researchers who 
invested such inspiring 
creativity and care in 
developing the solutions we'll 
hear about today.
I offer a warm hello to the 
congressional staff members 
joining us and special shoutout
to or distinguished guest, 
special Presidential envoy for 
climate John Kerry.
In July 2020, when we launched 
the climate grand challenge, we
wanted to focus the daring 
creativity and pioneering 
expertise of the MIT community 
on the urgent problem of 
climate change.
But the world was still reeling
from the first months of Covid.
MIT researchers were just 
getting used to working on 
campus again.
We didn't know what reaction to
expect.
So you can imagine how thrilled
we were when our first call for
proposals yielded nearly 100 
submissions, involving almost 
400 faculty researchers, 
representing all five MIT 
schools as well as a college of
computing.
After rigorous review we 
invited 27 teams to develop 
comprehensive plans.
From that XEMGSal group of 
finalists we then chose five 
teams to proceed as flagship 
projects.
You will have the opportunity 
to meet each one of them today.
These projects were made from 
industry to agriculture, and 
from prediction to adaptation.
Yet they all aim to address an 
important unsolved problem in 
climate, and they all aim to 
generate and deploy significant
solut
solutions at scale in time to 
make a difference.
Together these flagship 
projects will define 
transformative new research 
agenda at MIT.
One in a has the potential to 
make meaningful contributions 
to the global climate response.
Each one has received a boost 
of initial funding from MIT.
Yet with aspirations on this 
scale this project will also 
need allies and supporters at 
MIT and other institutions as 
well as from outside the 
academy including investors, 
financial pieces, policy 
makers, industry leaders, and 
more.
To all of you here with us, and
to all of you watching, I hope 
that what you hear today will 
inspire you to join us in 
action, for humanity around the
globe.
Climate change has been called 
a super wicked problem.
In Boston that might sound like
a local way of saying really 
hard.
[Laughing]
but this phrase is actually a 
technical term.
It describes any enormously 
complex SPOE sigh tall problem 
that has no single right answer
and no clear finish line.
As well as multiple 
stakeholders with conflicting 
priorities and no central 
authority in power to solve it.
I'll give you an example, the 
war in Ukraine.
It's obviously creating 
terrible immediate human 
suffering.
It is also affecting the price 
of oil and gas.
And therefore impacting the 
global debate over climate and 
energy policy.
Complexity, uncertainty, and 
conflict can paralize progress.
In fact I recently heard a 
phrase that has stuck in my 
mind when it comes to 
addressing climate change 
despair is as bad as denial.
At MIT we believe that when a 
problem feels overwhelming, the
best antidote is practical 
action.
That is what we're here to 
share with you today.
Let's get started.
We begin with a fireside chat 
between me and our special 
guest secretary Kerry.
It is a chat but luckily for me
I will be asking all of the 
questions.
In January 2021 former 
secretary of state John Kerry 
became the first person 
appointed to serve as special 
Presidential envoy for climate.
Secretary Kerry is an inspiring
choice.
His role is a perfect 
expression of the fact that 
when it comes to climate no 
nation can go it alone, we're 
all in this together.
With that please welcome 
special Presidential envoy John
Kerry.
[Applause]
secretary Kerry, it is a great 
honor to have you with us 
today, thank you so much for 
joining us.
Since last may, MIT has been 
pursuing its latest climate 
action plan.
We call it fast forward because
we believe that progress on 
climate change depends on 
pursuing two tracks at the same
time.
Track one is do everything 
possible as fast as possible to
get current technologies 
deployed and policies 
implemented.
Track two is to accelerate the 
development of new technologies
and policy tools because 
current technology alone we 
believe is not sufficient to 
meet the world's climate goals.
So two questions.
Do you believe we need action 
on both of those tracks?
And do the world leaders you 
meet with share that view?
>> Well first of all thank you 
for giving me the opportunity 
to tackle this wicked awesome 
problem with all of you.
And really thrilled to be at 
MIT.
I congratulate you Rafael on a 
very timely, critical 
initiative.
Which is as I said earlier, 
classic MIT.
I think it's a part of what 
we're going to need to get 
where we need to go.
Those two tracks are absolutely
correct and critical.
We do have the technology we 
need now to do what we need to 
do between now and 2030.
But we don't have the 
technology we need to guarantee
we can get to net zero by 2050 
and do what we have to do after
that.
Even if we get to net zero by 
2050 if you want an awesome 
problem we have to take 1.9 
trillion tons of CO2 out of the
atmosphere and figure out where
to put it.
Once we get to the net zero.
We can do that, if we were to 
deploy much more of the 
renewables that we have and 
keep some of the nuclear that 
we have already providing, and 
bring online some of the clean 
energy sources that we've been 
building the last years, we can
get a 45%, 50% reduction in 
emissions between now and 2030.
But that requires also for the 
rest of the world to be doing 
things at a pace that they are 
not.
In Glasgow we agreed, and it 
was quite extraordinary 
actually, we got big 
countries -- China, Russia, 
India, others -- to consent to 
a kind of shift from Paris 
where in Paris we agreed we had
to do two degrees or well below
two degrees with an aspiration 
of frying to do 1.5.
Because of the ipcc report of 
2018 we know that no longer is 
two degrees, doesn't cut it.
Well below.
Well below 2 sounds like 1.5 to
me.
So we're now all agreed that we
need to try to get there.
But it is a verbal, rhetorical 
agreement at this moment in 
time.
I'm deeply concerned about 
where we are.
65% of global GDP left Glasgow 
committed to real plans that 
can achieve the limiting of 1.5
degrees as a temperature 
increase.
In fact the IEA did modelling 
on all of the promises and 
pledges made in Glasgow and 
they determined by 2050 if 
they're all implemented we 
would be at 1.8 degrees.
When I heard that I said wow, 
we really can win this fight.
We can get to 1.8 degrees with 
only 65% of the GDP think of 
what happens if we get the rest
of the people onboard.
Our goal is to push for that.
We are pushing for it.
We're working hand in hand with
Indonesia, working closely with
South Africa, we have about 
$8.5 billion we're putting into
South Africa to bail out their 
energy company, which is 
basically bankrupt, and to 
begin to close down coal-fired 
power plants.
Working with Mexico closely to 
get the President to agree to 
deploy many renewables.
If we can do those things the 
problem is, I tell you, I've 
been at this for a long time.
And I'm beginning to be a 
little frustrated and 
exasperated with people who are
defending the status quo and 
who are standing in the way.
China is 30%, 28% to 30% of all
of the emissions of the world.
We can't get there without 
China moving.
Now, we created a working group
with China, we had dozens of 
working sessions with the 
Chinese negotiating.
We finally broke through in 
Glasgow.
We got the Chinese to agree 
that they will this year issue 
an ambitious national action 
plan on methane reduction.
They will join with us in the 
working group in order to try 
to reduce their consumption of 
coal.
And they will deal with 
deforestation.
If we can get them to move on 
those three things we can get a
reduction curve to get to 2030 
date in a decent place.
The IPPC said in its most 
recent report while the window 
is closing we actually do still
have time to be able to do what
we need to do to avoid the 
worst consequences.
The worst consequences.
Not to avoid the crisis all 
together.
Each of the tracks, taking the 
existing technology and 
deploying it more rapidly, but 
the IEA also tells us to 
achieve our goals more rapidly 
means GE employing renewable 
energy five times faster than 
we are now.
Deploying -- cutting coal-fired
power five times faster than we
are now.
Getting electric cars on the 
road, 22 times faster than we 
are.
You start hearing those figures
and you say we have to mobilize
as if we're at war.
And in many ways we are.
Part of what is happening in 
Ukraine is tied to the 
weaponization of energy and 
it's a problem.
At the same time we must push 
the new technologies.
I was just out in California, 
just really to learn more about
what is happening and what is 
real and how can we get there.
At Google-x I saw people making
carbon into product.
And there are real ways we can 
do that.
I know in Australia they've 
done some of that, other 
places.
With a bunch of startups, I saw
things that will change the 
game on lithium and saw how we 
produce it.
Battery storage.
100 hour battery, game 
changing.
We have to push those 
technologies to market faster.
We have got to find them, check
their feasibility, put a 
demonstration together, 
prototype, get out there and 
bring them to scale.
That's a monumental job, folks,
and it has to be done in the 
next eight years.
I don't think we're equipping 
ourselves sufficiently to 
actually meet that target.
Which I'm concerned about, 
chagrinned about.
And we have a very, very 
difficult political situation 
in our country today where an 
entire party has decided that 
the concept of climate response
is toxic.
And they will not acknowledge 
the reality and move on it.
So if we don't move on in a, 
then the United States of 
America, which has the historic
high of carbon production is 
going to become a real problem 
in terms of where we have to 
get to.
>> Mr. Secretary, you said if 
we can get to work together, 
and you mentioned other 
nations.
We have a shot at getting 
there.
There is a lot of things 
frustrating going on in the 
world, and sometimes in America
as well.
But let me just say we're with 
you, and there is one person 
that can accomplish that 
globally, that's you.
>> Oh, well --
[ LAUGHING ].
Thank you folks.
It's great to be here.
[Chuckling]
look, it's really hard when you
can't talk to some of these 
people.
I got a lot done with President
pew tin when I was there.
We got chemical -- President 
putin, we did the Paris 
agreement, we created the 
largest March rein protected 
area in the world, we got 
things done.
This is a different moment and 
different person right now.
You know, Russia is off the 
table for the time being.
We have many issues with China 
getting in the way.
Climate is not a bilateral 
issue.
It's a universal, multi 
lateral.
Global challenge.
We've been able to separate it 
in our meetings to some extent.
Recently I've begun to feel a 
growing tension which I worry 
about greatly.
 You can't talk in the context 
of existential challenges.
And then walk away the way 
people are walking away and 
behave the way people are 
behaving.
Either it is existential or it 
isn't.
Why?
Because the ideology doesn't 
tell us that, the science tells
us that.
This is a matter of physics and
mathematics, not politics or 
ideology.
Unfortunately we're stuck in a 
place where ideology is getting
in the way.
Where the polarization of our 
nation is preventing us from 
doing what we know we have to 
do.
And history is going to judge 
us very harshly if we do not 
find a way through this thicket
at this moment.
>> Those are serious 
challenges.
All I meant to say is keep at 
it, don't give it, we need you.
[Chuckling]
>> I accept the responsibility,
it's okay.
I accept the nomination, thank 
you.
[Laughing]
>> Mr. Secretary, the grand 
challenge projects we'll hear 
about today deal with many 
aspects of the climate change 
problem.
Mitigation, adaptation, 
prediction.
On climate adaptation what do 
you see as the greatest need 
worldwide in that arena.
How helpful will it be for 
countries to have more precise 
information on where and when 
climate impacts will be felt?
And the mitigation of projects 
for industrial energy use in 
every culture.
What are the biggest hurdles to
making progress in those areas 
right now?
I'm talking about adaptation, 
prediction, mitigation. 
>> The biggest problem, Rafael,
is status quo.
Powerful vested interests that 
are standing in the way.
That's the biggest problem.
I spoke at CIRA, the big energy
offense in Houston, and I was 
lead speaker, the beginning 
speaker, first speaker.
What was supposed to be a 
meeting that was truly 
organized around transition 
became a meeting that suddenly 
reorganized itself around 
production.
You could just feel the 
industry feeling excited by the
supply and demand, President 
demand up because Covid was 
beginning to seem like there 
was a light somewhere, so 
demand was going up.
And supply was going down 
because of OPEC.
That has had far more impact 
than Ukraine, per se.
But the price is high, drives 
the politics, and instills fear
in a lot of people particularly
six months out from the 
mid-term election.
So, again, the politics are 
getting in the way.
And truth.
We have lost our ability in the
United States of America to 
agree on what facts are and 
what the truth is.
If you can't agree on what the 
truth is in a democracy you 
have a real problem.
That's where we are.
And it defies imagination 
because there aren't sufficient
facts to support the 
alternative views.
I mean there aren't alternative
facts, right?
As old John Adams said, facts 
are stubborn things but we are 
not behaving that way.
I don't mean to sound -- I'm 
more and more persuaded, 
frankly -- first of all 
government doesn't have the 
money to do what we need to do.
When I stopped being secretary 
of state I left the job 
believing that it is going to 
be the private sector that 
solves this for us.
I still believe that.
The marketplace is going to be 
far more powerful in solving 
this than the government, any 
government.
We need to deploy trillions of 
dollars to do this.
The U.N. finance report says we
have a deficit of about 2.5 to 
4.5 trillion dollars a year to 
get to net zero.
The reality is that we have had
trouble getting $1 pun billion 
for the $1 pun billion promised
in Paris FO the less developed 
countries to help with 
transition.
We're at about $96 BRILion f we
get to $100 billion, we will be
next year, that's a drop of 
water in the bucket compared to
what we need.
Now N Glasgow we did create an 
alliance of major investors in 
the world.
Asset managers, asset owners, 
banks, et cetera.
I personally went to 
Goldman-Sachs, Morgan Stanley, 
Bank of America, J.P. Morgan, 
Wells Fargo, state street.
And those banks, the six 
biggest banks in America, 
committed over eight years they
will invest in this transition,
$4.2 trillion.
And in a's without blackrock 
and others, saying they'll do 
$1 trillion by themselves.
You can get to $6 trillion, $8 
trillion pretty quickly.
The problem is deploying that 
money.
It's RECHLT money, not 
concessionary funding.
You need to find a way to 
derisk some of it.
We're meeting on that right 
now, this week, we will have 
meetings with various multi 
lateral banks are meeting in 
Washington, world bank, Asia 
development bank, European 
development bank, et cetera.
We will try to create blended 
finance and activate that 
money.
That money rushing into the 
sector I think will have a 
profound impact.
In addition, we do have $62 
billion that went to the 
department of energy.
I'm still hopeful that we will 
get some kind of climate bill 
out of Congress.
There are discussions taking 
place right now, there's a 
possibility of it, not a 
certainty, but a possibility.
But those trillions of dollars 
are key.
There's about a trillion 
dollars in venture capital in 
the marketplace right now.
And investors are waking up, 
ESG has changed board room 
discussions around the world.
People are now sensing much 
greater urgency to finding the 
solutions that the new 
technologies and taking to 
scale the old technologies.
You know, what keeps exciting 
me, the reason I keep at it, we
can do this.
We can win this battle 
actually.
But there has to be a massive 
change of behavior and a shift 
in the allocation of capital.
I think the marketplace has a 
better chance of enticing that 
shift than does the government 
absent perhaps one tool the 
government could put in place 
quickly, the investment tax 
credits and the production tax 
credit, that would make a huge 
difference f people can bring 
themselves to price carbon 
adequately that would have the 
greatest impact as your 
modelling at MIT shows and 
everywhere else, that's the 
biggest shift you get in the 
curve have comes from pricing. 
>> Is there legislation to move
in that direction --
>> Knob on that yet.
There are people pushing it, 
senator whitehouse from Rhode 
Island, a few other people, 
Lindsay Graham talked about 
perhaps doing something in that
vein, there is a bipartisan 
small group who could move on 
it.
But it is not yet proposed and 
adopted -- and promulgated as a
major initiative by the 
administration or the Congress 
at this point. 
>> It's been talked about but 
you don't see anything coming 
any time soon. 
>> Probably not on that.
Certainly not six months before
an election. 
>> True.
You touched on a topic, the 
markets, and the private 
sector.
I think, indeed, waiting for 
government action sometimes may
be a little slow for the time 
scale for dealing with.
The next question is addressing
a little bit of. 
That I'm curious about your 
view.
One problem in the U.S. right 
now, we don't seem to move 
technology rapidly enough from 
the lab to the marketplace.
I'm seeing Katie Rae, in the 
front row, she's been fighting 
that fight for years now, 
leading the engine.
That's the subject of today's 
final panel.
What strategies would help make
the U.S. a leader again in 
moving technology into 
commercial use?
And have you seen any successes
at home or abroad that you may 
want to share?
>> Well, putting vast, serious 
money into consortiaF we bring 
people together universities, 
colleges, lab brings.
The 17 labs are doing really 
interesting things.
There's a lot of money going 
into the labs right now.
That has the potential of 
changing it.
We need about five Manhattan 
projects, frankly.
That's what I think.
I think that we ought to 
organize that.
That's how America's technology
lead will be kept by 
facilitating the breakthroughs 
that are necessary in the 
technologies we know we need 
here.
We tried, we started something 
in Glasgow which I find 
actually promising.
As one of the tools to try to 
excite different activity.
It's called the first movers 
coalition.
We got 36 companies, now we're 
setting a goal of trying to get
it over 50 by the world 
economic forum, which will take
place in may in Switzerland.
Our goal is to bring these 
companies to the table.
What we're trying to do is have
the first movers are big 
companies that are helping to 
accelerate the creation of a 
market.
They do it by paying some of 
the green premium, up front, in
order to create a product that 
the marketplace needs and 
wants.
For instance on aviation we 
have Boeing, Dell, that united,
salesforce and apple all agreed
that 5% of the fuel, airline 
fuel they use for flying around
the world for their businesses 
is going to be sustainable 
aviation fuel with an 85% 
reduction in emissions.
We don't have that tech today.
But by saying we'll buy it, 
somebody is going to say 
there's a ready market.
They're making green cement.
They're paying the additional 
premium.
People are paying -- people are
buying it.
Ironically they're buying it 
not because it's green but it 
is a better cement.
There's been a benefit to that 
project.
Volvo agreed that 10% of the 
steel they buy to make their 
automobiles is going to be 
green steel.
There is a company in Sweden 
making green steel.
So that could accelerate the 
move of peepful we get more 
people participating in that.
If we get more people 
participating in that.
Marist said the next eight 
ships they build will be 
carbon-free.
It's exciting to have companies
step up and say we'll take the 
lead, create the market.
We can accelerate that, and if 
you have a tax credit for that 
kind of behavior we would see a
huge shift in the marketplace.
Yeah, there are things that are
happening that I think are 
exciting.
The problem is it's not 
happening fast enough.
And that's where government 
comes in.
Government can send a signal.
Government can create the 
structure.
You can build around that and 
move much faster.
I hope yet we will still get 
there with a climate bill this 
year.
Which is essential for American
leadership.
We just will not have 
credibility in the global 
marketplace of ideas and 
actions as a climate leader.
We have been leading.
We put the methane pledge 
together.
We now have a pledge that 112 
countries, 113 now, we just got
Qatar to sign up, 113 countries
pledged they will join in the 
pledge to reduce global methane
by 30% by 2030.
If we achieve that goal, 
personally I think we can 
exceed it.
Methane reduction is sort of 
plumbing, it's not reliant on 
high-end technology.
Plugging likes in the pipes, 
the wells, wellhead, leaks in 
transportation, leaks in use, 
flaring, all of these things.
If we curb all of that it's the
equivalent of getting every 
automobile in the world, every 
truck in the world, every ship 
in the world, every airplane in
the world to zero by 2030.
Big impact.
Saving of .2 degrees Celsius on
the rise of the earth's 
temperature.
Those are the kinds of things 
that give you encouragement.
It can be done.
We have to organize the effort.
And that's what we did with the
methane pledge. 
>> You said a few minutes ago a
climate bill.
What do you see coming there, 
what is a crystal ball?
>> Nobody has a crystal ball on
this one.
>> You just said that --
>> Joe Manchin has a crystal 
ball.
This requires -- this is one 
person, you know, that's got to
decide what they're willing to 
put on the table.
He's thinking about it, I know,
I had great conversations with 
him at the IEA meeting, I 
tacked to him the other day.
He's thinking about how to do 
it and he wants bipartisanship 
to come together.
We'll see what happens.
A bill in the range of $500 
billion for climate activities 
of various kinds would really 
be a shot in the arm and put us
on the track we need to get on.
>> Let's talk about business 
leaders, we have only a few 
morements.
You talk not just to 
leadership, business leaders, 
what are they saying business 
leaders about climate?
Do they understand how 
significant and dangerous the 
changes to the world climate 
are?
How would you assess their 
commitment?
>> I think there are a lot of 
business leaders of very 
important companies, some of 
which I named, the Microsofts, 
Google, apples and others who 
are trend setters in many ways.
And a lot of other companies.
Ford and G.M., Ford and G.M. 
are completely retooling their 
factory floors.
They are going to produce 
electric cars.
The target is 2035, only 
electric cars will be sold in 
the United States.
They're buying into that.
The utilities are buying in to 
electricity's role in this 
transition, they aren't 
fighting it.
There are people ready to go in
the private sector.
And many, many companies are 
stepping up.
You with it what I said about 
the banks.
They're ready to invest in the 
sector, allocating specific sum
of money to the sector.
But they also need certain 
ingredients to be aligned for 
them to make a responsible 
fiduciary decision to put the 
money on the line for 
longer-term investment.
But, look, we had about 13 to 
17 trillion dollars sitting in 
a parked status paying net 
negative interest over the last
five years, which is absurd.
When there are many projects 
around that are transportation 
projects, energy projects, 
water projects.
They have revenue streams.
You can clearly set up a 
capacity for that money to be 
working for you.
Maybe 7% return, 12%, it's not 
100x but it's a decent return 
particularly for people with 
fiduciary responsibility like 
retirement funds, pensions, who
have to look at a longer term 
with a different standard.
Disclosure, by the way, which 
the SEC is proffering is a huge
factor because that disclosure 
is going to require companies 
to assess the impact of climate
on an investment going out into
the future.
If you're investing in real 
state in Florida or Bangladesh 
and other places it's pretty 
clear you could have a 
different view of that if you 
look and take climate into 
effect.
I think the corporate world, 
not at large yet, but 
increasingly larger.
Much broader sector of people 
are concerned, they know it 
affects business, values, 
supply chains, returns, and 
that's where I say the 
marketplace is going to move 
here.
It already is moving.
Some people ask me frequently, 
especially abroad, what happens
if you have a return of a 
certain President or what 
happens if there's a shift of 
parties, you have the people 
who are denying still taking 
over.
I believe no politician can 
turn the clock back on what is 
happening now.
I think the marketplace has 
seized this.
You have a trillion dollars of 
venture capital moving towards 
battery storage or green 
hydrogen or electroizers, 
utilization, there is money to 
be paid in that.
The people who understand the 
science know this is not a I 
can if a issue.
This is going to get worse.
And it's coming at us.
Every economic analysis done 
that is legitimately 
peer-reviewed and published 
shows us it is far, far more 
expensive to not respond than 
it is to encourage these 
investments and to do the 
things we need to do to build 
reSIEL YENT and adapt.
It is going to happen in my 
judgment.
One of the reasons is good old 
capitalism.
People see they can make money 
doing this and the marketplace 
is going to move.
>> That should make it work.
Secretary Kerry, it is a great 
honor for us to have you with 
us.
Thank you for this fascinating 
conversation.
As you can tell, I think I 
speak on behalf of all of us in
this room and all of us 
watching that we're proud of 
the work you do and we're proud
of staying with you and 
standing with you in this 
extremely important work. 
>> Thank you.
Thank you to MIT.
This effort is what we need.
We need grand challenges around
the world.
We need to come together in 
these efforts.
So this is a brilliant 
initiative.
And very important leadership.
Thank you, MIT. 
>> Thank you.
[Applause]
we're now going to hear the 
teams and projects.
But before we'll watch a brief 
video narrated by somebody with
a familiar accent.
Thank you very much. 
>> I have to go to Washington.
I hate it but I'll go to 
Washington. 
>> Thank you.
[Applause]
>> solving tough problems is 
what MIT does.
It is in our dna.
And today for much of the 
worlded population there is no 
greater problem than climate 
change.
We launched our first ever 
climate grand challenge 
competition with one of 
over-arching goal, to Marshall 
the expertise and we sources of
the entire MIT community to 
pursue the big ideas it will 
take to address difficult 
unanswered questions facing 
humankind.
Our faculty responded with 
nearly 100 bold proposals.
From this outstanding pool we 
invited 27 teams with the most 
promising concepts to the final
round.
Now we're proud to announce 
that five finalists will become
flagship MIT project.
Together these projects are 
launching a new agenda of 
transformative research with 
the potential to capitalize 
game-changing advances in the 
global climate response.
Yet-Ming Chiang and Bilge 
Yildiz find materials behind 
decarbonizing industries, 
steel, cement, ammonia and 
ethelyene.
Raffaele Ferrari and Noele 
Selin are advancing 
intelligence, data sciences to 
improve accuracy of climate 
models and to make them more 
useful to communities and other
stakeholders.
Christopher Voigt is looking 
for revolutionize the 
agricultural sector with 
climate resilient DRO KROPT and
fertilizers to eliminate 
greenhouse gas emissions.
Kerry manual, Miho Mazereeuw 
and Paul O'Gorman are building 
a tool kit to help communities 
adapt to climate events and 
transition to low carbon energy
in the face of changing 
weather.
Elfatih Eltahir is thinking how
communities adapt to climate 
change by developing a cutting 
edge forecasting system to help
underserved communities with 
future climate impact.
The goal is grand and simple, 
to bring new solutions to the 
world quickly.
To help the teams solve grand 
challenges as fast as possible 
and dedicate significant 
funding and we're seeking more.
We're eager to partner with 
industry, business, community 
leaders to implement these 
solutions at scale and to 
inspire others to join us in 
this work.
[Music]
>> thank you.
Thank you all for being here.
We're here to talk about a 
global problem.
I wanted to start with 
something very local.
Everyone in this room probably 
remembers when they first came 
to the reality of climate 
change and the impact it will 
have.
I wanted to tell you, my 
personal story here.
It didn't happen in the lab, it
didn't happen while reading 
scientific papers.
Here in Massachusetts if you 
like the outdoors you are 
likely to be gravitating to 
cape cod.
There are a lot of things to 
do.
What I like to do is go 
fishing.
The most prized native species 
in Massachusetts is the striped
Bass.
And this is a family friend 
Camille Riley, she caught this 
in the 1990s.
She's now a biomedical engineer
working in New York city.
Now, a as scientists we kept 
data.
What we saw was the year by 
year we would catch more of 
these warm water species.
This is my son, Merrill W a 
Spanish mackerel.
First we thought this is great,
beautiful fish, they are good 
to eat as well.
But within about 15 years my 
daughter, Nickie, caught a 
tropical fish off of cape cod.
This is a trigger fish.
My point is that this fish does
not belong in New England.
In wasn't the only one.
We are catching MA hi MA hi 
late in the summer.
Nobody knows this more than New
England lobstermen.
They've seen a sweet spot for 
lobster, moving north, with 
surprising velocity.
I personally first came to 
understand the impact of 
warming ocean many years ago.
So to save the natural world of
course we are here to address 
the industrialized world in 
this particular project.
So the topic that we've 
addressed in our center, which 
is called the center for 
electrification and 
decarbonization of industry.
We're choosing to address the 
first four largest emitters.
Cement happens to be the 
material that we make in the 
largest volume of any man-made 
material, 4 billion tons a 
year.
Along with steel those 
literally form the backbone of 
our built environment, our 
cars, appliances.
Then there's ethelyene, the 
basis for many plastics, 
including plastics you will 
make use of at lunch today.
Ammonia used in fertilizer.
Just these four taken together 
represent 45% for industrial 
emissions globally.
Project this to human emissions
this is about 15% of all human 
emissions.
This is a grand challenge.
What we are going to try to do 
is reinvent the processes by 
which these have been made.
All of which are 100 years or 
so or close to that old.
We're going to try to do it 
with electricity.
Let me tell you a little bit 
about cement.
Cement, the process we use 
today was invented over 150 
years ago.
It's a high temperature 
process.
The temperature of a cement 
cone is about 14 to 15ce
15centigrade.
Each ton of cement that we 
produce emits one ton of CO2 by
this process.
Four billion tons of cement a 
year is what we produce 
globally.
Half of that CO2 comes from the
limestone which we decompose on
the way to making cement.
The other half is the fossil 
fuels used to reach the 
temperatures.
Mostly coal, old tires thrown 
in there, but mostly coal.
If you instead use electricity,
you can take the same starting 
materials, the limestone on the
right, and take it and turn it 
into lime which is the input 
into making that cement.
In the process, 
electrotechnically what we can 
do is take out the CO2 in a 
cold, pure form that's easier 
to capture and sequester.
And we can do this entirely at 
room temperature.
As a result we take out the 
thermal emissions as well.
Secretary Kerry referred to 
some ongoing work with green 
cement and there's the path to 
partial decarbonization of the 
industry.
We're aiming for complete 
decarbon STAIGS of the 
industry.
To do so with zero green 
premium.
We think there are pathways to 
get there.
If you take this decarbonized 
lime which is highly reactive 
you can th at room 
temperature, with an entirely 
room temperature process, make 
the decarbonized cement, you 
see Tim on the right-hand side,
that'sot the only thing we 
did with the cement.
I've been carrying Tim the 
beaver around for several 
nths.
He's a strong beaver.
This is a ceme that's more 
than 80% decarbonized at room 
temperature.
is illustrates a pathway that
we're following.
I don't have lot of time to 
talk about steel today.
But I did want to say that 
stee electrochemisy applied
to ste can likewise aceve 
ssive decarbonization.
That's an industry that's been 
using ssil fuels since the 
ir age.
Athis point let me pass it 
over to Bilge who will tell you
about ethelyene anammonia.
>> Let's go to the story of 
ammonia and ethelyene.
ese are e two top most CO2 
emitting cmica by far.
 The current cmical processes
that we usto synthesize them 
require large amounts of 
therl energynput
The hor Bosch process for 
amnia and steam craing of 
FTA for ethylene.
And the theal ergy eded requed t
present is being ovid by 
burng fossiluels
Moreover, e feed sck tt 
 need fothe conversion 
process for exple drogen 
eded for ammonia synthesis is
being madey CO2 emting
presseat prese.
is together amnts to a 
large CO2 footint, about 1.5 
to 3 tons of CO2mitted per ton  
oduc.
I willepeat the same mesge 
as Y-Min in the nterur 
visi is tose clean eltricity  d 
manufaurinof these 
chemicals.
And  makthem mormodur 
d ecomical.
By use of ectricity we d't 
meannly  use electricity to
convert eltrical energy  therma 
the same chemil ocess.
But rather use electricity to 
waitnd make and reme 
chemic bonds.
 call this electchemistry.
And r aim iso reinvent 
thesprocesseby leraging 
ectrochemistrys an 
efctive means toecarnize the maa
ethyne, similar tohe sry 
of cent and steel that 
Yet-Ming has shared.
Elecochemist giv us a key
advantage, a leverage, in fact 
a strong driving forceo drive
these reactions atore 
moderatemilder conditions.
In particular much reduced 
temperatures
Which mak the pross me 
managele.
With alsincrsed 
seletivity towardshe 
chemical product that we e 
targetg to produce.
r exampl we can use solid 
oxide, solidtate
eltrocmistry to produce 
ammonia from water and nitrogen
to produce ethylene from 
methane and co26789 from war 
VAtor.
The -- vapor
The resulti sysms are 
modular, compact, more 
distributable and flexle and 
certaiy cleaner than the 
current thermoemical 
process.
In addressing the decarbon SAEX
of these four industrial 
pillars, steel, cement, 
ethylene, and eye moania we 
consider their integration, 
connecting input and output 
streams amonmultiple 
processes to enable a 
self-contained supply chain to 
the extent feasible.
And this integration approach 
can minimize the waste and 
emission footprint from the 
process overall, utilizing 
waste stream from one feed 
stock to the other.
Hydrogen which is a byproduct 
of electrochemical ethylene 
synthesis can be used to 
extract iron from iron ore.
Or the CO2 generated from 
limestone conversion reaction 
in cement production could be 
used as a feedstock to 
electrochemical ethylene 
synthesis.
Considering this process 
collectively and looking for 
the best integration paths will
be important for them with 
accessibility of the process.
And our work will leverage 
targeted fundamental science to
advance these technologies in 
our laboratories working 
together with our students and 
young scientists, followed up 
by scaleup from small scale to 
pilot scale demonstration at 
MIT.
And finally as soon as possible
translation to the field 
through startups or through 
collaborations with established
industry.
And I would say that we feel 
very lucky to be at MIT to 
address this climate grand 
challenge because we can bring 
together the needed key 
expertise all the way from 
aTOMS to enterprise under the 
same roof.
And indeed our team brings 
together the needed expertise 
in innovations in 
electrochemistry, innovations 
in materials, innovations in 
process design and scaleup as 
well as in the integration 
sustainability and 
techno-economic analysis.
So that we can, together, 
discover and deliver novel 
materials, processes, to enable
the electrification and 
decarbonization of important 
industrial products.
We are very excited to be 
working on this together.
I would also like to thank the 
MIT leadership for initiating 
the climate grand challenge 
activities on campus.
And for supporting our work.
And we are looking forward to 
growing our collaborations with
all interested groups.
Thank you for being here.
And for listening.
[Applause]
[music]
>> okay, starting in the '60s 
at MIT scientists have 
developed sophisticated models 
to predict the evolution of 
clouds, ocean KRNTS.
You can see that today's 
weather model here on the right
looks similar to reality, that 
is a picture from a satellite.
And allow us to predict the 
future revolution of currents 
and clouds.
This model has been very 
successful.
These models have been very 
successful in predicting the 
evolution of weather a few days
to a week in advance.
It is now common to check a 
weather forecast on a 
Smartphone and make decisions 
based on that forecast like 
plan an event, go on a hike.
This is information that 
everybody can use to make 
decisions without being an 
expert in weather forecasting.
Similar models are used to 
study the evolution of climate 
on longer teams, decades to 
centuries.
For such long time scales, 
climate models ignore many 
details.
Like the day-to-day weather 
patterns in the previous 
picture because of limits in 
present day computer power.
As a result they are not very 
accurate at making projections 
of future climates.
On the screen here, you see a 
cartoon showing increasing on 
earth temperature predicted by 
what will be state of the 
climate models.
All of the models agree that --
with each other and 
observations over the last 
Century, they've been tuned to 
reproduce available 
observations.
This approach does not work 
when they try to predict the 
future and we see the 
discrepancy.
Climate models are good at 
interplation but not 
extrapolation.
This model is not quite fit for
the purpose EEF evaluating 
different mitigation and 
adaptation strategies, the 
theme of today's discussion.
The challenge we want to tackle
in our proposal is therefore to
tackle two issues.
The first one is make climate 
models more accurate and make 
them useful for stakeholders 
like the weather applications 
that I have shown you before 
that we use in weather 
forecasting.
How do we plan to achieve the 
goal?
Well, in particular we talk 
about the first goal and 
passing forted second one 
making them useful for 
stakeholders.
This is work we have started 
doing as part of the climate 
modelling alliance, 
collaboration project between 
MIT, Cal-Tech, and JPL 
sponsored by Schmidt futures to
write a new generation climate 
model.
You can see a sketch of what 
would be our model on the left.
The atmosphere land and ocean 
are divided in big blocks about
100 kilometers by design, a 
quarter of the size of 
Massachusetts, 200 meters in 
the vertical.
Many processes like clouds and 
ocean currents literally fall 
through the cracks of the model
in figuring out how to 
represent the effect of this on
future climate is the key 
challenge of climate modelling 
from a physics perspective.
Taking advantage of new and 
faster computing architectures 
like gpus we S simulate them 
separately in each of the 
blocks in which we decided our 
global model.
Essentially create digital 
data, how this process will 
change in the future climate.
Creating the digital data that 
we need.
Leveraging advances in data 
science and machine learning, 
you can then use the digital 
data to train the climate model
on the present, past, and 
future climates.
This will improve the AK RA 
sift climate model but as 
importantly, we would provide 
quantified uncertainty in pry 
mat projections that are needed
to have actionable information.
>> The climate model provides 
information that is a 
substantial advance over the 
state of the art.
Not only in incorporating the 
latest science and 
computational techniques and 
tied to questions of global 
importance.
But is it really a more useful 
model and why should those be 
making decisions about 
mitigating and adapting to 
climate change trust its 
insights.
In a model like this provide 
the realtime information the 
stake holders need to address a
changed climate?
Will those stakeholders have 
the ability to explore 
scenarios, change its 
assumptions, and customize it 
to their needs.
Our project build on the 
understanding that if this new 
modelling approach is going to 
be useful and relevant to 
decisionmakers and communities 
they need tailored products not
a one size fits all scenario 
simulation.
Users need to be full partners 
in developing and testing this 
model.
How do we plan on bridging this
gap?
The new advances in data 
science and artificial 
intelligence that help create 
the climate model can also be 
leveraged to help us design and
build new fast-running 
simulations in a stakeholders 
can interact with.
These smaller more efficient 
simulation which is we call emU
laytors of the full model 
provide high fidelity present 
VIXs for the climate variables 
that users need.
Creating this emulator is very 
time consuming and expensive.
Our plan is to harness the 
latest come pewtational 
techniques to make this process
faster, easier, and cheaper.
For example, a tailored 
emulator could be useful for 
local communities and 
governments grappling with heat
wave and their health impacts.
We know that heat waves are 
deadly and increasing in 
severity as a result of change 
in climate.
It matters where and how they 
occur.
And how long.
Heat waves also interact with 
other human influenced drivers,
such as emissions.
Decisionmakers that want to 
manage the human impact of heat
waves need information at the 
scale that matters to them, 
they can intervene by planning 
policies for infrastructure, 
transportation and energy.
Those in turn can feedback to 
affect outcomes such as 
people's health.
Doing so requires projections 
of things like temperature and 
other climate variables such as
rainfall and expected 
populations, and emulator aims 
to make that information more 
accessible and relevant.
Ideally, as easy to access as 
the weather app.
To create the emU laytors 
together with stakeholders we 
plan to work together with 
colleagues who have deep 
connections at MIT, decision 
makers affected by Klatt mat 
change.
In the public sector including 
policy makers and planners as 
well as private sector in 
particular working together at 
the MIT climate consortium.
Our project aims to provide 
proof of concept for the 
modelling approach and few 
selected case studies.
Once it's SKWALD up we hope it 
will democratize access to 
climate position, providing new
information across the world to
make decisions that affect our 
shared future.
>> So the goal of making 
climate position accessible and
useful for stakeholders is 
truly a grand challenge, one at
MIT is uniquely positioned to 
meet thanks to our expertise in
all of the disciplines.
From climate science to be the 
models to machine learning and 
design of fast ememulators and 
engagement with stake holders 
in the public and private 
sectors.
We are thankful to MIT and the 
broader work community giving 
us the opportunity to work on 
this program properly and 
hopefully making a difference.
[Applause]
>> in 198 I had the privilege 
of meet iing MOR Nan bor.
 Norman borlog, a leader of the
green revolution of the 1950s 
and '60s.
He developed high yielding 
dwarf varieties of wheat which 
were planted in Mexico, India, 
and Pakistan.
Combined with fertilizer usage 
and new farming methods these 
high yielding varieties were 
for a million people and 
propelled many others out of 
poverty.
Dr. Borlog won the peace prize 
for this work in 1970s and many
other awards.
What struck me in his 
conversation with us students 
is that he was not content.
He was incredibly concerned for
the future and was unsatisfied 
with the present state of 
research in agricultural tech 
NOCHLGT he exhorted us that 
young people continue to pursue
research in this area.
This conversation was one of 
the inspirations for me to 
become a plant by OL JIRNLT and
ultimately a faculty member at 
MIT.
And a plant biologist.
We face dire prospects than 
when I met Dr. Borlog in the 
1990s and another revolution is
needed.
 Ag contributes to and is 
impacted by climate change.
I'm part of a team in 
biological engineering to 
revolutionize agriculture with 
low emissions and resilient 
drops.
Interdisciplinary team consists
of members aYOS engineering, 
SKOO ins, economics with a 
shared goal of mitigating and 
adapting to climate change 
through solutions from 
agricultural biotechnology.
Addressing two substantial 
challenges I'll tell you about 
today.
Agriculture is responsible for 
an astonishing 26% of global 
greenhouse gas emissions.
We're focused on one aspect of 
this fertilizer.
Through nitrogen fertilizer to 
soils is huge for crop 
productivity.
But it's come at a cost.
Ammonia as we heard is made Mia
the labor-Bosch process, 
chemical factories like the one
shown here.
This process consumes 5% of the
world's natural gas production.
Additionally, nitrogen 
fertilizer is heavy which 
further contributes to 
transportation continue and 
fertilizer inequities around 
the world.
Our goal is to use synthetic 
biology, chemical and 
biological engineering and 
material science to create 
economically viable and 
environmentally conscious 
VERTlizers.
This includes using genetic 
engineering to modify soil 
bacteria to provide atmospheric
thigh to eneliminating the need
for applied nitrogen.
An early iteration is shown 
here, where the fields treated 
on the right with EK neared 
bacteria that fixed nitrogen, 
looks much healthier and less 
yellow than the untreated part 
of the yield on the left. 
That yellowing is a signature 
of nitrogen deficiency.
Ultimately, we seek to provide 
equitybility to access in green
fertilizers.
The second challenge is impact 
of climate stress on crop 
yields.
Stress includes things like 
flooding, heat waves, increased
pathogens, high winds, and 
drought.
At present, about one-third of 
the variability is tied to 
climate variability.
This effect of course is only 
going to increase.
So it's really incumbent on us 
to develop strategies to 
mitigate the effects of climate
change on food security.
To do this we're creating 
climate resilient crops.
Performing fundamental research
to understand how plants 
respond to stress conditions.
And will use advanced 
engineering technologies to 
promote resiliency.
Even relatively simple 
solutions can have a big 
impact.
For example as shown here, so 
these beans, the seeds on the 
right, were coated with 
bacteria even KRASed in a 
biopolymer and you can see that
even though these soils are 
very poor the seeds that were 
treated with this bacteria end 
up producing beans whereas 
those that were not do not.
The climate resiliency 
approaches that we're 
developing will be transferable
across species and ultimately 
will expand the diversity of 
food sources that we rely on.
Agriculture is the basis of 
human SILization.
MIT is not historically known 
as a leader in the ag research 
space but we are a leader in 
many other disciplines that are
KRUBL for facing the climate 
process.
Thus isity Cal that we bring 
all of the tools and approaches
that we have here at MIT along 
with our brilliant students and
scientists to address these 
grand challenges.
Like Dr. Borlog we can't be 
content with current state of 
research.
We have to continue to 
innovation and rapidly deploy 
the solutions we develop and 
most importantly we must 
inspire young scientists at MIT
and around the world to pursue 
research in this area.
Doing so will ensure food 
security and right ducks of 
greenhouse gas emissions.
Thank you.
The worst climate change are 
not going to be in mean 
rainfall but in rare events 
hurricane Harvey are record 
rainfall or in last year 
incredible heat wave in western
North America, U.S. and Canada,
had many fatalities and huge 
disruptions.
They only happen every 100 
years, 200 years, they're rare.
Unfortunately, progress, we are
adapting to these events but 
progress is quite slow.
Also, it's tended to be in the 
places with the most resources 
already.
Something you might appreciate 
is that these kind of events 
also have a huge impact on 
energy system.
Energy system is rapidly 
evolving, decor Bonnizing but 
vulnerable -- decarbonizing and
vulnerable to weather and 
climate extreme.
Not addressing this means we're
not prepared for what is coming
to us.
Our aim is to empower 
communities to effectively 
address the problem of changing
weather and climate experience.
I'm showing this for the U.S.
Rainfall is intensified with 
changing rainfall extremes 
which you may have noticed if 
you live here.
But the historical record is 
too short for us to really 
understand this pattern.
There's a big increase in the 
northeast versus much smaller 
changes in the west.
But the pattern is still 
extremely important if we want 
to address these climate 
extremes.
To deal with that, we need to 
turn to computer models for 
risk modelling.
But this is very challenging.
The events that have the 
biggest impact only are 
happening every 100 or 200 
years.
We have to run our simulation 
as long time.
We have to resolve them very 
well.
It may not work well in the 
warmest climates.
In a warmer climate, sorry.
What we'd like to do then in 
our first goal for this grand 
challenge is to really to make 
improvement in our ability to 
model the risk of the rarest 
events.
This will be based strongly in 
the physics of the problem but 
also the leveraging advances in
machine learning.
Will build on work we've 
already done here at MIT, or 
started here at MIT, for 
example these synthetic 
hurricane tracks at the top 
which are made using a physical
model.
Can be sampled at long return 
period 100 year storm, 200 year
storm.
Or the bottom the use of neural
networks to better model scroll
lines which can produce strong 
flash foods that have really 
big impacts.
So this is a really important 
first step but obviously we 
have to translate the kind of 
data these models can produce 
into insights and information 
that can be used for designing 
infrastructure and for 
communities.
I'm going to turn to my 
co-leaders.
>> The power systems are one 
component of infrastructure 
that is vulnerable to extreme 
weather.
What I'm showing here are the 
nighttime lights in New 
Orleans.
Before and after hurricane Ida.
This image demonstrates 
visually the extent of the 
power outages experienced by 
residents in New Orleans, after
this particular event.
But outages across the U.S. are
worsening.
Both in frequency and severity 
measured as the duration of the
largest outages.
This is estimated to cost 
hundreds of millions of dollars
to businesses, but more 
importantly it is causing human
suffering.
One of the reasons why that 
suffering is greater is that 
the impacts are 
disproportionately concentrated
on certain areas in 
communities.
The electric power system can 
be made resilient today and in 
the future.
To do that we're going to model
energy infrastructure, and also
assess risks and strategies for
mitigating those risks.
Preventing power system 
failures means making all 
components of the power system 
more robust to extreme weather 
and depending on the particular
weather event, failure can 
occur in different parts of the
system.
There are many components of 
the system.
We can see this here with the 
two examples of the Texas 2021 
winter storm and hurricane 
Maria and the impacts on Puerto
Rico and other locations.
So depending on the type of 
extreme weather, you have risks
to different parts of the 
infrastructure.
We need to understand that.
We need to also understand how 
the extreme weather is 
changing.
That's part of what Paul 
touched on.
So we have to be able to 
anticipate the changing nature 
of these extreme events in 
order to make the SI terms more
robust.
It's not only the weather 
changing, as we look forward to
hopefully decarbonizing and 
rapidly decarbonizing energy 
systems as the system evolves 
toward this carbon-free future 
which is important for 
mitigating climate change what 
we will see is that the 
components of the system 
itself, the infrastructure 
itself are going to change.
We need to consider not only 
how weather events are changing
but also how the very system 
that we're trying to make 
resilient is changing.
We need to think about because 
of this new types of extreme 
events, and weather events, 
such as for example certain 
events that cause spikes in 
energy demand as we electrify 
energy services further, 
transportation, industry and so
forth.
And we also need to think about
how things like solar, wind, 
hydropower could be subject to 
risks from more extended 
fluctuations, rare 
fluctuations.
We know that a carbon-free 
energy system can be much more 
resilient than the energy 
system that we have today.
It can provide solution-free, 
highly reliable power to 
consumers.
In order to achieve that we 
have to be deliberate in our 
design of it.
And in this project we're 
hoping to contribute research 
insights to support that 
deliberate and effective 
decision making.
One of the things that is 
exciting is the science of 
extreme weather and engineering
societal solutions to 
decarbonization in one 
integrated project.
This HEENS we may identify 
extreme weather events that we 
might have overlooked where we 
need new science to understand 
them.
We will identify risks to 
infrastructure that can to the 
design of our decarbonized 
energy system.
It is critical that the risk 
assessment and methods to 
improve life line energy 
systems resilience reach the 
people impacted by intensifying
hurricanes, flash floods and 
heat waves to to their decision
making processes.
Adaptation and preparedness 
efforts require deep rooted 
collaboration s.
Based on existing partnerships 
we will initially be working 
with pilot cities selected for 
their physical and social 
vulnerability to increasing 
extreme weather events.
Cities like this in Florida, 
Puerto Rico and Capetown South 
Africa face different issues.
And cities are form by diverse 
communities operating through a
range of power dynamics and 
embedded histories.
Adaptation strategies are 
costly with complex regulatory 
overlays especially in federal,
state, and local funding 
structures, policies, and 
plans.
078 those who have the time and
resources can navigate these 
procedures.
We develop strategies to align 
otherwise topdown processes to 
engage with and foster 
bottom-up collaboration.
In our third step working with 
emergency officers, city 
planners, real estate 
developers, local organizations
and residents we will create 
more accessible and equitable 
ways to prepare for extreme 
weather events.
It is our role to listen and 
learn while sharing new data, 
developing new tools, that 
allow for co-creation of 
solutions.
Our wonderful team from earth 
sciences, engineering, energy 
systems, architecture, 
landscape planning and design 
will tackle mitigation, 
preparedness, and adaptation 
strategies.
We see this project not only 
making clear and direct impact 
in the pilot cities but through
educational modules, 
interactive platforms, open 
source tools, technology, 
innovative designs and 
strategies.
We aim to create tool kits to 
share with all cities 
empowering communities to 
collectively make the best 
decisions with the most 
accurate projections of future 
extreme weather events.
We are grateful to MIT for this
opportunity and look forward to
working with many of you.
[Applause]
>> good morning.
The goal of the climate 
resilience and early warning 
system network is nothing short
of reinventing how we do 
adaptation to climate change, 
especially in VUL neverable 
communities in Asia and Africa 
and elsewhere.
The levels of emissions that 
have been emitted in the last 
Century, and especially in the 
last flee decades, the degree 
of mess we made out of this 
planet, suggests that some 
level of climate change has 
already been committed.
So irrespective of how much 
mitigation is done in the 
coming years and decades, some 
committed climate change is 
going to happen.
That would require that some 
level of adaptation we have to 
be prepared for doing.
That committed climate change 
will man Ifest itself in 
impacts that range -- impacts 
that intensifying cyclones to 
rising sea levels, deadly heat 
waves, and severe drought.
For communities around the 
world, these impacts tran late 
into significant risk.
Intensifying cyclones would 
mean risk to infrastructure, 
reaching habitability, risk to 
health and heat distress, and 
risk to food security.
Despite all of the significant 
risks, the state of the art in 
how adaptation is done 
especially in vulnerable 
communities around the world is
not satisfactory.
You see that in this example 
that I pulled from Bangladesh.
This is a house that had been 
destroyed by a recent cyclone 
near the coast of Bangladesh.
And this gentleman over there, 
they're rebuilding the same 
house in the same location with
the same material and the same 
design.
We think that kind of reaction 
to climate change is not 
enough.
We propose to take proactive 
approaches in adapting to 
climate change.
What I mean by that is we could
use some of the latest 
technology on how we can model 
the characteristics of future 
Cyclones so that when houses 
are rebuilt they are built 
informed by that new 
information we have about how 
much destructive power the 
future Cyclones are going to 
have.
When you look at how adaptation
is done, it's mostly dependent 
on projections that are coming 
from global climate models that
have relatively courses 
solution of about 100 
kilometers.
If you are trying to adapt in 
the southern coast of 
Bangladesh or the value of the 
ganges using GCM is not 
sufficient.
You need higher resolution 
models, you need regional 
climate models.
Fortunately, here at MIT, we 
have been working on developing
this technology for years now.
And it has been tested, 
refined, applied, in different 
regions of the world.
And we think that we are ready 
to share it with communities in
vulnerable countries around the
world.
So if climate change adaptation
is the problem, our solution, 
our proposed solution is 
Crewsnet.
We aim to develop a framework, 
integrated framework 
architecture that come BIENLS 
the latest technology on 
forecasting together with 
modern decision support 
systems, linking that to 
implementation partners on the 
ground that can really help to 
screen, test, evaluate 
interventions before we deploy 
them and improve climate change
adapttation in those countries.
I would pass to my colleague to
share some of the other unique 
aspects of Crewsnet.
>> Thank you.
It is just such a pleasure and 
honor to be here with you 
today.
I'm Deb Campbell A senior 
research scientist at MIT 
Lincoln laboratory in the 
humanitarian assistance and 
disaster relief systems group.
As part of the Crewsnet team, 
Lincoln laboratory is an 
integrator across the team of 
the different project 
components and we are working 
on building information sharing
and decision support tools that
link MIT science products and 
proactive adaptation techniques
with local decisionmakers in 
climate vulnerable communities.
We have extensive experience 
developing these types of 
capabilities and systems, 
including the United States 
current hurricane early warning
evacuation system used by more 
than 10,000 users today.
As well as platform for 
information sharing and 
collaboration for responding to
humanitarian crises in use 
today in several Balkan 
nations.
MIT has never before assembled 
this climate modelling, 
socioeconomic impact 
forecasting, and technological 
capabilities in a unified 
science to decision framework.
And combined that with the 
socioeconomic expertise that we
have on our team including the 
joint program for science and 
policy of global change, the 
poverty action lab JPAL, and 
BRAC.
We are working together toward 
a revolution in climate change 
adaptation.
Our work is initially focused 
in Bangladesh with an eye to 
east Africa.
Bangladesh is at the epicenter 
of climate hazards, with rising
seas, salinity intrusion, 
intensified tropical Cyclones, 
river flooding, river bank 
erosion, heat waves and erratic
rainfall.
East Africa is a vulnerable 
region with accuse miss to be 
water and food insecurity.
People living there make DEG 
SIGSs about climate change need
to understand Ball likely 
happen where they live and what
kinds of decisions are going to
need to make to protect the 
people that they're responsible
for protecting.
Making decisions about climate 
change is very challenging.
It requires information about 
the future climate tailored to 
the user.
And a deep level of trust.
That's why it's critical to 
have a powerful partner like 
BRAC.
This is a world renowned 
humanitarian and social 
development organization.
It was founded at nearly the 
same time Bangladesh became a 
nation.
It just celebrated in the last 
month its 50th anniversary.
It has been ranked the number 
one NGO in the world for six 
years in a row.
BRAC is a ready to go 
intervention partner.
They have a climate change 
program.
And they've been helping people
adapt to climate change.
But they recognize the critical
importance of proactive 
adaptation and they want to 
incorporate that into their 
programming.
The local communities that they
work with are resilient and 
KREE aDIF.
But need help -- creative and 
need help connecting with local
climate position and programs 
they would not have access to.
Working together, we envision 
communities building homes 
designed to withstand 
destructive winds and future 
storms.
Using water storage systems 
designed to harvest and safely 
store clean water when it's 
more abundant for resilience to
severe and frequent droughts.
Adopting agricultural practices
and crops that are more 
resilient to the future 
climate.
In Bangladesh BRAC will pilot 
new approaches to adaptation in
their programs and J-PAL will 
help evaluate the 
effectiveness, focused on 
implementation, uptake and 
impacts.
The growing climate climate 
crisis require as new proactive
adaptation approach.
With our MIT team and our 
partnership with BRAC aROO 
uniquely positioned to help 
address the gap between the 
scientific and technical 
experts and families and local 
governments.
Together we are working toward 
a locally driven global-public 
good that empowers communities 
to better plan for and adapt to
climate change and approve 
their climate resilience.
We are initially focused in 
Bangladesh with an eye to east 
Africa and talking with 
partners on the ground now in 
east Africa and working toward 
a globally extensible 
capability that will continue 
to incorporate modelling and 
intervention innovations over 
time as new innovations come to
light and we can assess best 
practices.
I want to thank you so much for
your support and your attention
today.
And we can't wait to share with
you the result of our work as 
we move forward.
Thank you so much.
[Applause]
>> good morning everybody.
I'm Maria Zuber, Vice President
for research.
It is fantastic to see you here
this morning.
I hope you are all as excited 
about these projects as I am.
In my job, I see many promising
research efforts.
But let me say here these 
climate grand challenge 
flagships are uncommon in their
imagination and their as 
plagues.
This was by design.
MIT called on its faculty to 
identify the most difficult and
significant climate problems 
and to propose novel solutions 
that if achieved would 
represent substantial progress 
towards halting future climate 
change and adapting to the 
effects of the changes that are
already under way.
In addition to these five 
flagships, there are nearly two
dozen other climate grand 
challenge finalists.
Each of them focuses on using 
data and science to tackle 
challenges in one or more of 
the four areas that you've 
heard about this morning.
Forecasting climate related 
risk, decarbonizing complex 
industries and process, 
removing, managing, and storing
greenhouse gases, and building 
equity and fairness into 
climate solutions.
Together these projects are 
emblem attic of all of MIT 
effort that grows our mission 
to advanced knowledge in 
service to the nation and the 
world.
However, for all of the 
excitement we come together 
this morning not to celebrate 
but to commit.
We are embarking on five 
adventures but we don't know 
yet, cannot know yet where 
these projects will take us.
They are powerful and promising
ideas.
But each one will require 
focused effort, creative and 
interdisciplinary team work and
sustained commitment and 
support if they are to become 
part of the climate and energy 
revolution that the world 
urgently needs.
This work begins today.
Of course no single institution
is going to solve the climate 
change question by itself.
We will only succeed together 
with the efforts of other 
research universities and 
laboratories, the investments 
of if I LAN TLO PIRNTs and FIE 
Nan sewers, the information and
decisions and actions of 
governments and the 
determination of people all 
around the world.
The task before us, in fact, 
requires an all of humanity 
effort.
Furthermore, achieving 
breakthroughs in science 
technology and policy while 
necessary will not be 
sufficient.
It often takes decades after a 
new idea is proven for it to 
find its way into general use 
and we simply don't have that 
kind of time.
New solutions and methods need 
to be widely adopted, supply 
chains need to be 
reconstructed, laws, policies 
and practices need to be 
modified, and all of this has 
to happen globally and at warp 
speed.
This is why MIT named our 
climate action plan fast 
forward because humanity has no
other choice.
Transforming the world's 
economic and energy systems by 
the middle of this Century 
while minimizing the suffering 
and losses from the climate 
changes that have already been 
set in motion are daunting 
tasks.
But some of us remember a 
President who challenged us to 
go to the moon in just a 
decade.
Our minds and hands and hearts 
are powerful tools.
I'm confident that we are up to
this grand challenge.
I will now turn the floor over 
to Alicia Barton, the ceo of 
first light power and board 
chair of greentown labs.
Alicia is a clean energy leader
with years of experience in 
both public and private sectors
including her time as ceo of 
the New York state energy 
research and development 
authority.
Alicia will moderate our next 
panel which is called from 
innovation to impact at scale: 
Solutions in time to make a 
difference.
Alicia, thank you for being 
here.
And leading this discussion.
[Applause]
>> thank you, Vice President 
Zuber for that kind 
introduction, and I just have 
to say I'm incredibly honored 
to be part of this event today.
Those presentations we just 
watched were fantastically 
inspiring.
I can't imagine a better way to
celebrate earth week than to 
think about the power of the 
innovation coming out of the 
MIT grand challenges.
I'm also very happy to have an 
easy job today which is to 
moderate a discussion from a 
superstar panel of experts who 
are all working on how do we 
make that innovation and then 
deliver climate solutions at 
scale.
I'd like to invite the 
panelists to join me on stage.
Then we'll go through some 
brief introductions and get 
right to the conversation.
All right, so this really is an
amazing panel of experts.
They all have incredibly 
impressive bios which 
unfortunately I'm going to do a
disservice to by shortening 
quite a bit and just give the 
highlights as we go down the 
row here.
To my right is Jack Litte, the 
ceo and co-founder of math 
works Sim Ulink.
Katie Rae, Katie serves as ceo 
of the engine, a venture 
capital fund built by MIT that 
invests in early stage 
companies solving the world's 
biggest problems of 
breakthrough science, 
engineering and leadership.
Next to Katie is Manish Bapna, 
President and ceo of the 
natural resources defense 
Council, NRDC, and the former 
executive Vice President and 
managing director offed world 
resources institute.
Last but not least, Arati 
Prabhaker, the President of AK 
to you it a and former director
of advanced research projects 
agency, DARPA.
Welcome everyone to this stage.
Let's just jump to the heart of
the conversation.
We just had five incredibly 
powerful presentations on 
innovations that, again, have 
truly the potential to deliver 
huge impact.
But there is a long pathway 
between innovation to getting 
SLUSs at scale.
Each of your organizations are 
attacking that problem.
Tell us a little bit about how 
you and your teams are 
approaching that very lofty 
challenge of taking us from 
idea to impact at scale.
Maybe we'll start with Arati 
and come back this way. 
>> Hi, everyone, it's great to 
be here to celebrate the launch
of these really terrific 
projects.
I with a couple of colleagues 
founded a nonprofit called AK 
to you it a a couple of years 
ago.
 -- AKtuate, our work is 
innovation and experimentvation
aimed at getting to climate 
scale faster.
Let me say what I mean by 
climate scale a lot of the 
conversation we tend to have in
the innovation community is 
about how to scale up from 
hero, how do you get things out
of the lab, get things 
commercialized, hit a billion 
dollars in revenue, how do you 
have a liquidity event to keep 
it going.
So many people are engaged in 
those pieces.
That has to happen and 
fortunately we have gotten 
better at how to do that for 
the challenges of climate.
Climate scale is something 
that's very different.
That is the scale of deployment
that actually, the climate 
notices.
Where climate outcomes start 
changing.
If that's your focus as it is 
for us, how do you do that?
First of the all it's important
to any about climate scale if 
you want to think about the 
kinds of innovations that 
accelerate getting to climate 
scale.
The question you need to ask is
what will it take, is that 
broad systems question.
There's no one technology or 
one idea or one policy, no one 
thing that will get to us 
climate scale.
I think it's actually very 
instructive to see what we can 
learn from the technologies 
that have started achieving a 
scale of deployment that the 
climate is noticing.
Of course we are very far from 
fully decarbonizing any sector.
But if you look at energy 
efficiency and if you look at 
renewables these are our 
biggest advances where in fact 
we are starting to see very 
meaningful contributions to 
reducing greenhouse gas 
emissions.
When you ask the question what 
did it take to start to get to 
the place that we now have 
significant traction and 
significant deployment, in all 
of those cases the technologies
had to come along and they had 
to go through the valleys of 
death that we talk about in 
terms of technology innovation.
Innovation happens in other 
areas, in very, very different 
areas as well.
To pull those technologies 
forward in the deployment we 
had to innovate with policies.
Which of which worked and some 
of which didn't.
We had to innovate with finance
models.
Some of them worked and some 
didn't.
We had to innovate with lines 
of business for established 
companies, business models, 
startups, which of which worked
and some of which didn't.
Communities had to innovate.
They had to find new ways to 
adopt these technologies and 
Umately it was all of us as 
individuals and as a society 
that said we have to do 
something different.
And drove policy and finance 
and the markets forward.
When you start asking this 
question about what would it 
take it leads to you different 
forms of innovation.
This is the focus of the work 
we're doing.
The questions we're asking 
today are questions about what 
would it take to get to 80% or 
90% of electricity generation 
coming from renewable and 
carbon-free sources.
Or what would it take to get to
80% or 90% of passenger 
transportation being electric 
vehicles that are fully 
decarbonized.
What would it take for the very
nascient in carbon removal to 
scalend draw the kind of 
financial capital it takes to 
advance and deploy the 
technologies.
I think of this as innovation 
and innovation, 15 years ago, 
we didn't know how to innovate 
in the early stages of R&D or 
new technologies for climate.
We didn't know how to do 
venture capital and get this 
ball rolling.
We now know how to do that.
Some of the people here are 
right in the middle of. 
That now we've also got to add 
a form of innovation that's 
about getting to massive scale 
the kind of scale that the 
climate notices.
That's what we're all about. 
>> Manish?
>> A privilege to be here f 
climate is truly a wicked 
problems OOM we heard five 
absolutely wicked solutions.
This was really bold and 
inspiring.
So I'm with the natural 
resources defense Council.
We kind of major on policy 
issues.
Technology is absolutely 
critical to getting to scale.
So is finance.
So is policy.
If you take a look at where we 
are state of play in the United
States, made commitment 50 to 
52%-to-by 2030, we're at 17% in
2021.
Far off track.
If you look globally, secretary
Kerry said we were at 1.8, 1.9 
degrees, that is a very lenient
definition around what 
countries have committed to.
If you see where there's real 
policy in place we're at 7.2 
but not on track.
We need think of the impact 
that they're tacking about.
In the short run, policies can 
be a critical piece of that.
My ONRDC has been working for 
50 years on many of these 
issues, working on vehicle 
emission standards.
How you drive down emissions of
vehicles.
Worked in California in 2004 to
get the first advanced clean 
car rule, worked hard to 
replicate it in a number of 
other states, worked with the 
Obama administration to get the
first real federal standards 
for greenhouse gas emissions 
from vehicles for up to model 
year 2025.
The question is how to get to 
100% zero emission vehicles by 
2035.
What we need to do.
We're working in California 
trying to do that.
Really trying to push hard at 
the federal level to see how we
can make it happen through that
strategy.
We work a lot on renew an 
portfolio stacks, power sector 
critical to decarbonization if 
we get the industrial 
decarbonization that we get 
today has to come from clean 
energy.
1983, we were in Iowa working 
on the first right knewable 
portfolio standard.
38 states in the district of 
Columbia have RPSs in place, 12
of them 100% clean energy by 
2050 or earlier.
But not a federal standard.
How do we get that in play?
We're working in India, I was 
in India about a week and a 
half ago, first trip in 2 1/2 
years, hottest March in 
recorded history of India we 
were working, some of you may 
recall really terrible heat 
wave in 2010, tens of thousands
of people died across India.
We started working in 2013 with
the Indian institute of public 
health.
The city metropolitan Council 
of the city to put in place 
urban heat action plan, early 
warning systems.
How do you get coordinated 
response when heat strikes 
cities.
How do you build XASity of the 
public health system to respond
effectively.
Did a really good job at that 
city worked hard how do you 
replicate that now we're in 23 
states, over 100 cities across 
the country.
No small part working through 
the federal national management
disaster agency.
Three, quick ingredients, what 
gave policy at scale.
How do you quantify and make 
much more visible the economic 
and public health Ben fifth 
interventions we're talking 
about.
Resonate, connect with what 
people care about, in addition 
to the benefits.
Think about unlikely 
partnerships.
We worked with the united auto 
workers in California to get 
them to be opposing tough 
standards to being funding to 
stronger vehicle emission 
standards.
How do you think about that 
variable geometry, where the 
political windows are.
Stems you can move things in 
Washington.
Sometimes you have to work in 
states, how do you be nimble 
about creating the 
constellations where you can 
begin to push and create the 
scale of change we need to see.
Critically important set of 
issues.
I'm a graduate 1991, 6-1, was 
not a good engineer, my 
bachelor's thesis was with bill
Seibert who passed away a few 
years ago, undergrad 
engineering reform, how do we 
get engineering to better 
address social environmental 
issues.
What I did in '91.
This is such a delight to be 
here with all of you today.
[Applause]
>> thank you.
>> Katie Rae, I run the engine,
which is -- we actually are 
five years old, about a month 
ago.
We were spun out of MIT.
I'm looking at our Dean of 
engineering, who was integral 
to this as well as President 
Reif.
But there was a bunch of 
thinking done, maybe 10 years 
ago, about what was happening 
in what we think of as tough 
tech.
Climate tech is tough tech.
These are wicked hard problems 
that often are tougher to get 
to market because they're 
capital intensive.
Systems problems.
And large systems problems 
often.
But MIT doesn't sit on its 
hands ever.
So there were a group of people
that said how could we use the 
community that we have here to 
reinvent how we finance these 
tough tech companies.
So the engine was borne out of 
that with the terrific group of
people.
So the last five years we've 
raised three funds and backed 
40 companies, many of them in 
climate technology.
Many of them in the most 
difficult areas where 
innovation was central to their
founding.
MIT is a leader in this 
globally.
That is in the invention of 
these technologies.
We do things like fusion power,
commonwealth fusion, I'm 
particularly excited about and 
I'm going to talk a little bit 
about.
But we also look at the 
decarbonization of every 
industry.
MIT has companies that are 
doing cement, steel, go 
carbonization of -- 
decarbonization of pulp and 
paper, dairy.
These are not just starting 
today.
This has been happening for a 
long time at MIT.
But now we have a moment to 
commercialize these project.
I think is an extraordinary 
moment.
I consider myself one of the 
luckiest people in the world 
because the students coming out
of MIT, and that's at every 
level, undergraduate, graduate,
post Doc and the professors 
here have been committed to the
challenges for a long time.
Therefore are going to have a 
big impact.
I love the grand challenges.
But you should look around and 
look what already is happening.
And I'm going to talk 
specifically about what needs 
to happen.
Because we made a strategic 
decision at the engine two 
years ago to really double down
on the companies that we had 
already backed to help get them
to SKWAL.
It's really nice to invent, it 
makes everybody feel good.
To get them to climate scale, 
it the most important thing.
That will take every board 
meeting that I have gone to in 
the last six months, where we 
have proven the tech NOSHLGS 
and we are beginning to scale 
it.
What you were seeing around the
board rooms, is so much 
commercial potential, we're 
having our doors beaten down by
companies that want to buy the 
technology, partner with us.
We are going to have to move at
the scale of what happened 
during World War II.
How do we do that?
Now, in some ways it's 
terrifying from where I sit.
In other quays it's the most 
exciting moment.
You have -- in other ways.
You have these groups of people
often lots of young people, 
whole next generation, who are 
devoting their careers to this.
But they're going to learn how 
to manufacture quickly.
They're going to learn how to 
reinvent supply chains.
And put teams together that can
work collaboratively.
Those are the kinds of things 
that we're working on right 
now.
I think these next challenges 
that have been put together are
extremely exciting.
But let's not also look over 
what's already happening here 
in this great region and around
the world.
That's my privilege.
>> That at mathworks we don't 
develop physical products that 
are going to solve climate 
change themselves.
However we do make software 
tools that are widely used 
among engineering and science.
I thought I would maybe talk 
somewhat about our customers 
and what we see going on in 
engineering and science.
Among the larger more 
established companies, they're 
shifting wholesale their teams 
on to things like 
electrification.
The automobile industry moved 
engineers from internal 
combustion over to the 
electrification type projects.
That's on a large scale.
It's pretty exciting what is 
going on there and how much is 
happening.
We're seeing that throughout 
engineering.
So the large companies can do 
that, scale up rapidly, 
shifting resources and shifting
hiring.
That's happening right now.
Can accommodate new advances in
technology that come along and 
scale them up quickly.
They're great stories of that.
Just if you look at the time 
consequence of well known 
things.
It was just ten XWLEERS ago 
that the first commercially 
vehicle was sold, now they're 
widely available.
Ten years.
Batteries reached a point where
suddenly you could -- the leaf 
had range of 70 miles.
And then there was the jump in 
range to around 300 miles, made
all of the difference.
It's highly competitive and 
it's a happening thing there.
In terms of other -- other 
great scaleups that large 
companies have done.
Apple 1 are 5 years ago the 
iphone was introduced.
15 years later, virtually every
human on the planet has an 
iphone.
That's extraordinary in human 
history.
And in a's another example.
Then my favorite scaleup of all
time is the Covid vaccine.
That's 18 months to get that 
out.
The industry can do these 
things.
Especially when there's an 
economic incentive as secretary
query said.
That's a big company.
Smaller companies, we've seen a
real explosion in startups in 
the last several years.
It's really kind of 
breathtaking.
We looked at some of our 
databases, we have -- there's 
over 4,000 startups that I 
found using our tools.
They use them for modelling and
rapid prototyping.
These are 750 that are relevant
to climate change.
There's 223 in electric 
vehicles, 142 in energy stores,
47 in solar, 37 in wind.
The secret sauce that ignites 
the companies is modelling and 
simulation, that's what they're
after.
This is the way that they get 
scaled.
They get scaled by, as we 
sometimes say, doing more on 
the computer than in the lab.
And doing more in the lab than 
in the field.
Sometimes people call this a 
shift left.
And so the simulation is really
a big deal right now.
Important part of trying to 
scale up early, small team can 
do, when they model and do it 
that way, can do more than a 
big team doing everything by 
hand or just in the lab.
That's one of the bigger 
scaleup methodologies that 
we've seen among the smaller 
companies there.
Those are my thoughts.
>> Those are four very clear 
examples of real world progress
and approaches that are being 
driven.
As we know from the 
conversation today.
You really nailed this, Manish 
led, we're not on track.
We have a big gap we have to 
cross.
Obviously we need all hands on 
deck.
I wanted to pivot to talk about
the players and how this room 
and those outside this room 
contribute to helping do the 
work that your organizations 
are doing.
Maybe we'll start with 
entrepreneurs since we're at 
MIT and I know we have a lot of
entrepreneurs in this audience 
and listening to the webcast as
well.
So what's, they're looking at 
an opportunity but they have a 
long way to go.
What's the advice that you have
for entrepreneurs, how to get 
from here to there, I'll put it
right back to you and Katie if 
you can jump in as well.
>> Lots of ways to go on this.
I'm going on a basic one.
It's hard to hire people right 
now.
>> It is. 
>> You have got to focus on 
recruiting.
This isn't really the climate 
change per se but I'm telling 
you, that is the shortage.
There's so many good ideas and 
startups, talent is really 
rough.
Recruiting is something can you
get good at.
People on our staff are XOORD 
and some not so good.
There's a big difference.
If you are a small company, 
hire KREE outer, get a full 
time recruiter, get someone on 
your staff.
It makes a difference to have 
somebody working on that every 
day.
There are ways to do it.
There is technology and 
processes and ways to do it.
That you can do better at that.
But you have to focus on.
>> Putting mean many at the 
center.
Katie, do you want to jump in?
>> I would say three things.
Number one, I think everyone at
MIT basically has the ability 
to pick a big area, understand 
how you would take technology 
and impact that area.
Pick something huge, something 
hard.
But if you succeed the impact 
will be huge.
In general we are focused that 
way.
But I think that's important.
The second thing is, it does 
have to be doing with 
recruitment.
You have to belief that you are
the one to solve it.
You're not looking to somebody 
else to lead.
It is your job to lead.
And find people who want to 
lead with you.
Who is that core team?
And then the third is work your
plan.
Lots of big ideas out there but
the people who win actually 
build it.
They work it.
They test it.
They find people to help them.
I always think who are your 
natural allies that can help 
you build faster and really 
show progress.
When we look at ideas we're 
looking for all three of those.
A space big enough that we 
could have a huge company and a
huge impact.
Then a team that's committed to
each other, that they actually 
show they can do something.
That's what I always focus on.
>> As somebody running a clean 
energy company that advice 
really resonates, thank you 
both for focusing on that.
And I think challenging all of 
us to find the people that are 
going to work together to solve
the challenge.
Some of those people will also 
be not in the private sector as
entrepreneurs but in the public
sector.
We need public policy leaders 
and that's been obviously a 
theme of the conversation today
from secretary Kerry and some 
of the remarks already on this 
panel.
Maybe I'll go to Arati, and say
what would be, and Manish as 
well, if you can jump in, what 
do we ask of our public 
leaders, where do we need the 
public sector and policy 
leaders to do?
>> I thought secretary Kerry 
really put his finger on it.
We know we can get to full 
decarbonization across 
different sectors.
We know it's possible 
technically.
The problem is we've never done
it in the very few decades that
are available.
Now we have to do it across 
electricity, transportation, 
agriculture, industry, 
everything simultaneously.
Absolutely the tense of 
trillions of dollars in the 
market need to get mobilized to
go do this work, if left to do 
it at the pace at which profits
can drive that process forward.
We're simply not going to make 
it in time.
The two really significant 
roles of government are 
figuring out how to drive it 
faster forward and that means 
removing barriers, putting 
incentives in place, reshaping 
markets.
That's how every other 
infrastructure got built and 
now it has to get done on 
steroids.
Number one faster and number 
two equitably.
We know that the 
infrastructures that got built 
in the past have left us with 
exacerbated inequalities.
And this has to get done in a 
way that's very different this 
time.
I will say on that issue that 
of course that is about the 
fact we have to treat everyone 
in our society in the right 
way.
And elevate people.
But it's also true that we're 
not going to meet our 
decarbonization goals.
How are we going to decarbonize
passenger transport if we 
assume everyone is going to 
charge at home but half of 
Americans can't charge at home.
How are we going to use demand 
flexibility to deal with 
variability from renewables so 
that we can have decarbonized 
electricity if it's only people
who put in a thermostat and 
spend hours figuring out how to
optimize it that make that 
contribution.
We have some very significant 
roles at the public sector they
have to play, and is 
fortunately, I think, starting 
to really step up to.
>> Go ahead Manish.
>> The scale, the speed and 
scale of what needs to be done 
is mind-boggling.
We're at 17%, we need to get to
50 to 52, that's basically 4% a
year for the next eight years.
Roughly what happened in the 
pandemic.
But without any of the costs.
We need to do that year after 
year.
Policies can be critical.
The window is short.
The next six months frankly are
make or break.
We need to see at least two 
fundamental things come out of 
Washington to create the 
economic incentives to move it.
There's 320 billion in 
potential tax credits for the 
power sector for vehicles, for 
homes, for appliances.
That has to get across the 
finish line.
That's going to really 
stimulate the shift we need to 
see in the next few years.
The second thing is we need 
rules.
We need regulation.
We're not going to be able to 
create the carrots, we need to 
move the fossil struck out.
Getting -- infrastructure out.
Getting clean vehicle standards
to the next generation of 
vehicles is going to be 
absolutely critical.
Those things are critical.
The other piece we need to see 
is continued ambition from 
states California, 
Massachusetts, the rest of the 
states.
But we need purple and red 
states starting to take steps.
The only way to get 50% to 52% 
is technology and finance and 
policy. 
The clean energy tax credits, 
rules on power plants and 
vehicles, greater state 
leadership is critical.
>> Manish, Arati raised a great
point on equitity.
How is NRDC bringing this
this is critical.
So how we actually design these
credits in a way that help 
address both that there are 
going to be losers in the 
transition.
We need to be -- what we can 
say is we're going to create x 
hundreds of thousands of 
renewable energy jobs and might
lose these jobs.
They may not be in the same 
place, may not have the same 
skills, how do you think about 
the transmission a much more 
sophisticated way and how do 
you deal with front line 
communities and environmental 
justice issues that have really
been marginalized over the 
decades.
In the house build back better 
act there was $150 million of 
environmental investments in 
addition to the tax credits.
>> Investments at the billion 
scale, focused on equity and 
obviously across the board, is 
a big part of the challenge.
Entrepreneurs and 
policy-makers.
What's the role of capital 
markets, of ESG investing has 
unlocked a pretty unique moment
where we see capital flowing 
into the space after many years
of not.
What do we ask then, and how do
we make sure those dollars as 
large as they are, are 
ultimately limited given the 
size of the challenge, how do 
we put them to the highest and 
best use?
Katie?
>> It is really important time 
in larger capital markets.
You see all of the big players 
commi
committing billions, hundreds 
of billions of dollars to green
technology.
And I think what they're all 
looking to is what is the right
technology to back.
They are not looking for 
concessionary dollars.
They're looking to make a lot 
of money on this transition.
Which I think is good news for 
this transition.
Because they're seeing the 
downside risk to all of the 
assets they own if we don't 
make the transition.
And they're seeing that they're
going to be outliar winners 
from these new technology 
companies especially.
New processes.
Not just software but the 
actual hard assets.
I was in New York yesterday at 
a conference on this.
And they were all there in 
droves, they all were looking 
at how are they going to put 
not $10 billion to work but 
$100 billion, $500 billion in 
work in these areas.
I think it's incouple XWENT 
upon the technologies that 
are -- incumbent on the 
technologies starting to cross 
over to being able to scale to 
get their stuff in order and 
raise that capital now.
Because we have no time to 
waste.
Any of you that these 
entrepreneurs can support these
entrepreneurs, lend whatever 
hand in their scaling, really 
leaders, they need that help.
I mean that's really what is 
happening.
These are leaders that have 
never grown a scaled company 
before, think about fusion out 
of MIT, Bob bumgard Ph.D. 
student is an extraordinary 
ceo.
He has a lot to do to scale.
Or scaling via separations, 
she's going to decarbonize pulp
and paper mills.
There are huge areas right now.
Her task to scale that company 
globally will mean that all of 
us need to help there.
And the capital markets are 
ready to back them.
Let's get our entrepreneurs as 
much help as possible.
>> So we're quite short on 
time.
Does anybody want to jump in 
for 10 or 30 seconds on this 
last point before we wrap up?
Go ahead Manish.
>> What I absolutely agree with
everything that was said, I 
just -- bringing in a little 
bit on the equity piece and on 
the resilience piece.
Also the need for public money.
Some issues are just, the 
private sector won't 
necessarily move in, there 
isn't money to be easily made.
Particularly true as we think 
about resilience in the 
developing world.
And that is an area where quite
frankly the U.S. government has
fallen far short of where it 
needs to be.
Just a strong, we also need to,
earth day is tomorrow, we need 
to get the people out there, 
and say actually to demand the 
types of solutions and the team
of commitment we need from this
government both for the United 
States and the world.
>> Well said.
Well unfortunately we are at 
the end of our relatively short
time here.
But thank you, all, for sharing
such incredibly positive and 
optimistic stories about the 
work that lies ahead.
I know with the resources that 
are gathered in this room 
together all working on this 
challenge that it is a good day
to think about the optimistic 
side of progress.
Please join me in thanking the 
panel for their comments.
[Applause]
let's turn it over to professor
lester.
>> Thank you, Alicia and panel.
I'm Richard lester.
It's my job to bring things to 
a close.
What we have heard, for me 
three takeaways this morning.
First, we must deploy right 
away the clean energy 
technologies that we know we 
need.
Second, we must lay the ground 
work for the additional 
solutions that we know we're 
also going to need.
And we must do this as fast as 
possible too.
And third, we need policies 
that are fair.
In a problem as complex as 
climate there are obviously 
going to be winners and losers.
But unless our policies embody 
the principle of fairness at 
the community level, the 
national level, at the 
international level we're not 
going to be successful.
And let's not waste time 
arguing about which one of 
these three is most important.
We need all of them.
Every one of us, I took away, 
needs to put our shoulder to 
the BHEEL.
At the points -- at the wheel 
at the points where our 
leverage is maximized.
Where we can do what we're best
at.
And for MIT climate grand 
challenge is one of those 
maximum leverage points.
Working with our students to 
apply forefront knowledge, to 
solve hard problems, is one of 
the things that MIT does best.
Also, doing it in a way that 
brings together the natural 
sciences and engineering with 
the social sciences and the 
humanities.
Because in the end the 
solutions will be about how 
people of all kinds live and 
work.
So our research must also 
involve culture and politics 
and ethics as well as science, 
technology, and policy, and 
economics I should say.
We heard some big ideas this 
morning, transforming 
agriculture and food, repo
repowering industries, 
refocusing climate risk and 
climate adaptation.
We'll see whether they can all 
be achieved.
We're sharing our plans now, 
today, before the results are 
known for two reasons.
To succeed we need partners.
Entrepreneurs, financiers, 
philanthropists, companies, 
community leaders, policy 
makers.
Partners in the research and 
partners in developing the 
products and services and 
pathways to scale in time to 
make a difference.
So the first message is to 
prospective partners.
We need your know how.
We need your resources.
Please join us.
And the second message is to 
other people like us.
The climate challenge require 
as commitment of every research
institution with the relevant 
skills and creativity.
And there are many.
The second message to our 
colleagues around the world is 
please consider doing something
similar if you haven't already.
If we can help you, we will.
Last, and most important, I 
just want to thank everyone who
is involved in this.
The hundreds, literally 
hundreds of faculty and staff 
and students at MIT who have 
been participating in climate 
grand challenges, the many 
nonMIT colleagues who helped 
us, our panelists this morning,
and everyone who is here in 
person or watching on the 
livestream.
I also want to thank Mr. Mac of
Sonoma, California whose 
generosity has made this 
initiative possible.
To everyone who is here, still 
here before you leave, please 
have a look at the display over
in salon west that highlights 
all 27 of the climate grand 
challenge finalist project.
Many of these others are also 
exceptionally promising.
Beyond these of course there's 
a great deal of important 
climate related research 
already in progress across the 
campus.
So please stay tuned.
Much more to come of the as 
Rafael might have said, if he 
wasn't from Venezuela, you 
ain't seen nothing yet.
Thank you, thank you.
[Applause]

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