Climate Crisis
Climate change is a global threat that requires an urgent response. The Harvard community is taking a multi-faceted approach to addressing and reversing the effects of this crisis.
Vice provost for climate and sustainability
VPCS functions across the University to accelerate and coordinate research and education on climate change, the environment, and sustainability.
Learn moreClimate champions
Students, scholars, and leaders throughout the Harvard community are confronting climate change and all its effects.

A. R. Siders
“Being uncertain doesn’t mean that we can’t address [the effects of climate change],” said the College and Law School alum, who is now an assistant professor at Delaware University’s Disaster Research Center.

Naomi Oreskes and Yvette Jackson
Jackson, assistant professor of music, wrote the 15-minute piece “Doubt” in collaboration with Oreskes, professor of the history of science, whose academic work has focused on the denial of climate science.

Udit Gupta
“We need to be asking what’s greener, running applications on the device or in a data center,” said the Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at SEAS.

Leslie M. Harris
The Beatrice Shepherd Blane Fellow uses memoir and family, urban, and environmental histories to explore New Orleans, from its founding through its uncertain future amid climate change.

Dan McKanan
“… climate change cannot be addressed in isolation, but only in relation to the intersecting challenges of white supremacy, settler colonialism, heteropatriarchy, and so many structures of injustice that are both the age old and reinventing themselves every day,” said the Divinity School senior lecturer.
Learn more
Explore these climate change primers to better understand the full scope of the issue and find out what you can do.
Climate@HKS
The digital hub for Harvard Kennedy School’s research, teaching, and engagement related to climate change.
Harvard speaks on climate change
This video series features faculty from across our campus discussing the many dimensions of the climate challenge: from law, business, and public policy, to public health, design, the sciences and engineering, and the humanities.
‘Climate Rising’
The Business School’s podcast features community leaders and faculty discussing what businesses are doing, can do, and should do to confront climate change.
Our progress
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1st
U.S. higher education endowment to pledge net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from investments
In April 2020, we pledged to set our endowment on a path to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from investments in its portfolio by 2050.

This pledge was a first among U.S. higher education endowments and a natural extension of Harvard’s ongoing efforts—through its teaching, research, and operations—to accelerate the necessary transition to a fossil fuel-free economy. Read the report on early progress and engagement activities.
Harvard has 143 LEED certified buildings, more than any other higher ed institution.

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30%
reduction in greenhouse gas emissions
In addition, Harvard has outlined an ambitious goal to be fossil-fuel neutral by 2026 and fossil-fuel free by 2050. We’re also continuing to maintain the 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that we’ve already achieved.

We have 2.513 MW of on-site solar through our 27 different installations, enough to power over 500 homes.
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Compost
is used at a local wastewater treatment plant to produce energy
The University’s compost is sent to an innovative facility at Save that Stuff to be processed into a high-energy product that is eventually shipped to a local wastewater treatment plant to produce energy.
Follow Sustainable Harvard on Twitter and Instagram to learn more.
Think globally, join locally
Join our Harvard climate experts on one of our many livestream events.
Latest climate news from the Harvard Gazette
We’ve curated a selection of Harvard Gazette stories focused on climate change.