This session, organized by Karen Thornber and moderated by Cajetan Iheka, brought together leading interdisciplinary scholars in the environmental humanities and social sciences to discuss the importance of inclusive, transdisciplinary research, education, and social action, among other modalities, to creating more effective solutions.

As countries around the world undertake efforts to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, the variation in the ambition and the form of emission reduction policies have drawn heightened attention to the trade implications of climate change policy. Whether it is carbon border adjustments that impose a price on the carbon embedded in imported goods comparable to those manufactured domestically, or clean energy subsidies that favor domestic production, policymakers have focused on ways to enhance their manufacturing competitiveness under climate change policy. While steps like this can address domestic political concerns, they can also contribute to tensions among trade partners. This session explored the political, economic, legal, and institutional questions at the intersection of trade, climate, and industrial policy.

This panel examined financing the energy transition in Africa in the context of climate change. To understand the needs in Africa’s energy transition and the urgency of funding, it is important that we understand the face of climate change in Africa. Extreme weather events have increased in frequency in Africa. In the Horn of Africa, four consecutive years of failed rains have left millions facing famine, uprooting farming, and herding communities. Floods devastated KwaZulu Natal and Nigeria in 2022, causing massive destruction to property and lives. Thirty of Nigeria’s thirty-six states lay underwater. Cyclones have increased in frequency in southeast Africa, wreaking havoc on Mozambique and neighboring countries. African economies are primarily agrarian, dependent on farming, livestock herding, and fishing. Resource extraction by multinational or foreign companies has devastated the African environment, rendering large areas in Nigeria’s Niger Delta unfit for farming or fishing. The nature of Africa’s economies has major implications for how it responds to climate change, the appropriateness of adaptation or mitigation strategies, and Africa’s incapacity to finance its energy transition.

The energy transition will be the biggest geopolitical risk in the coming decades, dwarfing the impact of other geopolitical resets like 9/11, COVID, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Efforts by governments, companies, and individuals to move to a net zero future will reorder the international landscape in fundamental ways. But so too will geopolitical events and actors influence how and whether the world can meet its climate ambitions. Watch the International Security, Energy Security, and the Energy Transition breakout session to hear more about this complex interaction between the energy transition and international affairs in different regions around the world.

This breakout session, moderated by Kari Nadeau, will examine the looming threat to individual and population health as temperatures rise around the globe. We’ll then pivot to explore solutions: Promising ideas to mitigate this risk through institutional action, policy changes, and adaptive engineering. The discussion reached for bold ideas but will be grounded by pragmatism, with a focus on cost-benefit analysis and decision science.

Reducing our greenhouse gas emissions will lead to extensive changes in how we live and how we work, how industries are organized, and what governments do. It can seem like a daunting task, but millions of people working in NGOs, companies, and governments are already engaged in making these changes happen. This conversation explored ways that people are making changes happen and ways that each of us can get involved. How are we changing our workforce? How do we help workers and communities that may be affected by the move away from fossil fuels? How can organizations change laws through advocacy? How are cities changing building codes, transportation, and other activities in order to reduce greenhouse gases and mitigate heat, flooding, and other problems?

Moderated by Professor George Serafeim, this panel explored various corporate actors: those that have made progress in emissions reductions; businesses for which climate action has a revenue benefit; and firms that must rely on negative emissions technologies to reduce their emissions.

Moderated by Gillian Tett, this panel discussion focused on the strategic interventions that are necessary to move us onto a better emissions path. Panelists will include leaders in business, government, and civil society.

Srikant Datar, Dean of Harvard Business School, and Jim Stock, Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability and Director of the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University launched the inaugural Harvard Climate Symposium on May 8th.