Using European Central Bank lending data, new research co-authored by associate professor Emil Verner found that since 2018 banks had reduced lending 20 percent to sectors they had targeted in their climate goals, such as oil and gas and transport. That seems like progress, but the researchers argued it was not sufficient because the decline was the same for banks that had not made the same commitment.

MIT's Sloan School is setting up a climate policy center that aims to produce policy-relevant research. The new center, established with a $25 million endowment, will employ professors and postgraduate students to produce policy-relevant research on shorter timescales, while also pursuing more typical, long-term peer-reviewed work. Professor Christopher Knittel told Axios that too often, policy-applicable work lacks incentives for academics. "Their job and their promotions are based on pushing the academic frontier of their discipline, and not necessarily translating that research into policy relevance."

"The impact on jobs of the energy transition is not just going to be where oil and natural gas are drilled, it's going to be all the way up and down the value chain of things we make in the U.S.," said professor Christopher Knittel, co-author of a research paper on the analysis.

"The target here is to produce electricity cheaper than coal and gas plants," senior lecturer John Parsons said. These fossil fuel plants are "terribly simple and cheap to run — they're just dirty," he added.

John Sterman, a professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management with a focus in sustainability, achieved the holy grail of net zero eight years ago. His 1920s Lexington home was due for an update, but instead of just "upgrading and renovating," Sterman decided the "incremental cost of going deeper and doing a retrofit" was the right move.

"Trees are great. I personally love to be out in the forests as much as I possibly can," said professor John Sterman. "But the reality is very simple: You can plant a trillion trees, and even if they all survived, which wouldn't happen, it just wouldn't make that much difference to the climate."

"In the face of complex social and environmental challenges, our best efforts often only address a symptom, rather than root causes, even as unintended consequences create new problems. For this reason, a growing number of people, across multiple sectors, are bringing a systems lens to societal change," wrote senior lecturer Jason Jay and co-authors.

Senior lecturer Gita R. Rao wrote: "'Long term' is key: In the context of sustainable funds, mitigating environmental impact or having positive social impact requires upfront costs, but often these benefits accrue only after several years. Investors need to have a sufficiently long horizon to assess the cost-benefit tradeoff of these actions by companies."

"We need a clear, sober and concerted scientific effort to understand the risks posed by exceeding tipping points," Professor Emeritus Henry D. Jacoby and co-authors wrote. "These risks are becoming more serious with every tenth of a degree of global warming. Investment in a better understanding of tipping point risks might be the best investment humanity could now make in the effort to preserve a livable planet."

"The menu of possible climate solutions is enormous, and its implications are vast. Decision-makers need a safe environment in which to test their policy ideas, before making big decisions that impact us all," wrote Krystal Noiseux, associate director of MIT Climate Pathways Project and Andrew Jones, executive director and co-founder of Climate Interactive and MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative research affiliate. Climate solutions simulators, like En-ROADS, can provide such an environment, where leaders can learn for themselves. "As Professor John Sterman always reminds us, 'research shows that showing people research doesn't work.'"

Professor Robert Pindyck wrote: "We cannot predict how extensive climate change will turn out to be over the coming decades, nor can we predict its economic and social impact. But we must be prepared for the worst, and begin to invest now in adaptation."

Professor Roberto Rigobon, research scientist Florian Berg, and research affiliate Julian Kölbel wrote: "Investors around the world rely increasingly on ESG rating agencies, which have become influential in guiding the decisions of retail investors, asset managers and corporate managers alike. So, as the business of rating has grown, and technology brings disruption, regulators on both sides of the Atlantic are preparing new rules."

"While the new regulation seeks to ensure that companies collect accurate traceability data on the geographic origins of commodities known to be part of their supply chains, it lacks the necessary specificity to prevent companies from merely identifying a range of possible origins instead of actual sources. This ambiguity jeopardizes the legislation's potential." wrote assistant professor Joann de Zegher.