About

The intellectual scope of the Climate School is broad. It is driven by the interwoven needs for societies to reduce the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and to equitably and justly cope with climate change.

Solutions to these problems rest on building FOUNDATIONAL KNOWLEDGE in the Climate School across three pillars:

Our priorities to achieve impact involve multidisciplinary teams from across the Climate School, Columbia University, and diverse partners to pursue real-world solutions through our Action Collaboratives.

Food: Nourishing humanity in a changing climate

The Challenge: Food systems are vulnerable to climate change and are major contributors of greenhouse gases and environmental degradation. At the same time, food insecurity remains stubbornly high and unhealthy diets are prevalent in many places around the world, creating inequities and vulnerabilities.

The Goal: Transform food systems to support climate resilience, reduced emissions, and accessible and nutritious food, especially for marginalized populations.

Energy: Accelerating an equitable energy transition

The Challenge: The most critical need for climate mitigation is to transition away from greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible and to capture and store carbon when elimination is not possible. This transition is particularly challenging for low-income settings and where the extraction of materials disproportionately affects indigenous and local populations

The Goal: Accelerate the just transition to a resilient, reliable, affordable, and clean energy sector by resolving technical and non-technical challenges and developing methods to reduce fossil fuels and achieve net-zero energy for all.

Water: Ensuring clean and healthy ocean, coastal, and fresh water systems for all

The Challenge: Water is a fundamental element of life on earth. Climate change, human alterations of water flows, and runoff of pollutants present challenges for a healthy interconnected water system.

The Goal: Embed resilience, adaptation, and mitigation in all sectors that depend on water, based on an integrated approach to the water cycle.

Built Environment: Transforming cities for equitable, low-carbon, and climate-resilient futures

The Challenge: With an increasing proportion of the world’s population living in cities, people in built environments are on the frontline of climate impacts as well as climate action. Building and adapting built environments to reduce vulnerabilities to climate change while mitigating climate change are critical for equitable and prosperous futures.

The Goal: Redefine and build blueprints for built environments to promote low-carbon local economies, climate resilience, and just and equitable places for people to live, work, and play.

Disasters: Strengthening resilience to disasters

The Challenge: Climate change is overwhelming societies’ abilities to prepare for and respond to disasters. Both public and private entities need new frameworks and information to transition from crisis-driven responses to proactive, community-relevant, and equitable management of multiple risks.

The Goal: Reframe disaster work to be driven by social justice and the impacted communities to proactively manage, reduce risk, and effectively respond to multiple types of disasters, especially for communities that are most affected.