Climate change is among the greatest challenges of our time.
Taking the necessary steps to limit global temperature rise and put the world on a more sustainable path will require transformational leadership and a re-imagining of economies. The Brookings Initiative on Climate Research and Action (BICRA) brings together experts who are shaping workable solutions for local, national, and global leaders to meet the climate challenge and seize opportunities for climate-resilient growth around the world.
The Latest
The case for climate reparations in the United States
In environmental and climate change policy, there is a blind spot when it comes to racism. The impacts of climate change are worsening and becoming more frequent: increasingly dangerous storm surges and floods; temperature extremes that raise household heating and cooling costs; and increased exposure to air pollution that causes avoidable deaths, to name just […]
Justice and fairness in global climate action
In this episode of “Climate Sense,” Samantha Gross explores the issue of justice and fairness in global climate action. Many of the world’s poorest countries have contributed the least to existing greenhouse gases but are on the front lines of the changing climate. It is not enough to have science, knowledge, and resources. What is […]
Taking action since Hurricane Sandy: Preparing a climate-ready workforce before the next storm hits
Last month marked a grim anniversary: 10 years since Hurricane Sandy hammered New York City, killing 44 people, displacing thousands, and exacting a $19 billion toll. Sandy flooded subways, cut off power, and plunged 51 square miles of the city underwater. This devastating storm underscored the lack of climate preparedness across New York City’s infrastructure […]
The arduous path to a global climate agreement
Addressing climate change must be a global undertaking, even though the world’s wealthy nations have been responsible for most of the global warming to date. In this episode of “Climate Sense,” Samantha Gross speaks with experts on why climate is such a challenging political problem, what it took to get an agreement in Paris in […]
FEATURED EVENT
Planet Policy
Stay up-to-date with the latest research and analysis from Brookings scholars.
Climate change will pose a huge disruption. Are the world’s banks ready?
An efficient market requires more information. That’s why the investment community has been among the most vocal in calling for the SEC to act.
bY THE NUMBERS
As extreme heat grips the globe, access to air conditioning is an urgent public health issue
In metro areas where a substantial number of homes lack AC, there are pronounced racial gaps, with Black and Latino or Hispanic households being less likely to have AC. The built environment in many historically Black neighborhoods—lack of tree cover and more paved surfaces—compounds the problem.
AREAS OF FOCUS
FEATURED VIDEOS
What is climate risk and why does it matter?
EXPERTS
-
Brahima Sangafowa Coulibaly
BSangafowaCoulBrahima Sangafowa Coulibaly is vice president and director of the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings after previously serving as director of the Africa Growth Initiative. He joined Brookings from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System where he was chief economist and head of the emerging market and developing economies group.
Vice President and Director
Senior Fellow
-
Samantha Gross
Samantha Gross is a fellow and director of the Energy Security and Climate Initiative at Brookings. Her work is focused on the intersection of energy, environment, and policy, including climate policy and international cooperation, energy efficiency, unconventional oil and gas development, regional and global natural gas trade, and the energy-water nexus. Gross has more than 20 years of experience in energy and environmental affairs.samanthaenergy -
Amar Bhattacharya
Amar Bhattacharya is a senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution. His focus areas are the global economy, development finance, global governance, and the links between climate and development. From April 2007 until September 2014 he was director of the Group of 24, an intergovernmental group of developing country Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors. Prior to taking up his position with the G24, Mr. Bhattacharya had a long-standing career in the World Bank.
-
Kemal Derviş
Kemal_DervisKemal Derviş is a senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings. He was vice president and director of the program from April 2009 to November 2017. Formerly head of the United Nations Development Programme and Minister of Economic Affairs of Turkey, he focuses on global economics, emerging markets, European affairs, development and international institutions.
Former Brookings Expert
-
Sanjay Patnaik
Sanjay Patnaik is the director of the Center on Regulation and Markets and the Bernard L. Schwartz Chair in Economic Policy Development at Brookings. His research focuses on climate policies, business and government relations, corporate political strategy, globalization, and international business. Patnaik is particularly interested in emissions trading programs, their role in mitigating climate change, and their effect on firm behavior.sanjay_patnaikDirector
Bernard L. Schwartz Chair in Economic Policy Development
Fellow
-
Bruce Jones
BruceBrookingsBruce Jones is director and a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy of the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution; he also works with the Center for East Asia Policy Studies. He is also a consulting professor at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University. Jones previously served as the vice president and director for the Foreign Policy program for the past five years.
-
Joseph W. Kane
Joseph W. Kane is a senior research associate and associate fellow at the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program. Kane’s work focuses on a wide array of built environment issues, including transportation and water infrastructure. Within these areas of research, Kane has explored infrastructure’s central economic role across different regions as well as its relationship to opportunity and resilience.jwkane1Fellow
-
Suzanne Maloney
MaloneySuzanneSuzanne Maloney is the vice president and director of the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution where her research focuses on Iran and Persian Gulf energy. She is a leading voice on U.S. policy toward Iran and the broader Middle East, testifying before Congress, briefing policymakers, and engaging with government, non-profit organizations, and corporations.
Vice President and Director
-
Joshua P. Meltzer
JoshuaPMeltzerJoshua Meltzer is a senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution. At Brookings, Meltzer works on international trade law and policy issues with a focus on the World Trade Organization, large free trade agreements, digital trade, and financing for sustainable infrastructure.
Senior Fellow
-
Mark Muro
markmuro1Mark Muro is a senior fellow and policy director at the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, focusing on the interplay of technology, people, and place as they are altered by disruptions. Mark is an expert on regional technology ecosystems and economic development and has published extensively on manufacturing, digital trends, energy issues, and regional industry clusters.
Senior Fellow
-
Jenny Schuetz
Jenny Schuetz is a senior fellow at the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, and is an expert in urban economics and housing policy. Dr. Schuetz has written numerous peer-reviewed journal articles on land use regulation, housing prices, urban amenities, and neighborhood change.jenny_schuetzSenior Fellow
-
Adie Tomer
AdieTomerAdie Tomer is a fellow at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program and a member of the Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative. His work focuses on metropolitan infrastructure usage patterns, including personal and freight transportation, and the intersections between infrastructure and technological development.
Senior Fellow
-
David G. Victor
David Victor is a professor of innovation and public policy at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego. He is the Center for Global Transformation Endowed Chair in Innovation and Public Policy. Victor is also the co-director of the campus-wide Deep Decarbonization Initiative, which focuses on real world strategies for bringing the world to nearly zero emissions of warming gases. His research focuses on regulated industries and how regulation affects the operation of major energy markets.
Nonresident Senior Fellow
-
Landry Signé
Landry Signé is a senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development Program and the Africa Growth Initiative at the Brookings Institution. His career and research span the areas of global political economy, global governance and sustainable development, global business and emerging markets, strategic management and leadership, fragility, state capacity and policy implementation, the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Globalization 4.0, and the political economy of Africa and developing countries.LandrySigneSenior Fellow
Professor and Executive Director
Distinguished Fellow
-
William J. Antholis
William J. Antholis is a nonresident senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He also serves as the director and CEO of the Miller Center, a nonpartisan affiliate of the University of Virginia that specializes in presidential scholarship, public policy and political history. His academic background is in how democracies conduct foreign policy, and he has served in the U.S. government at the White House and State Department. He is the co-author with Strobe Talbott of “Fast Forward: Ethics and Politics in the Age of Global Warming.”wjantholisNonresident Senior Fellow
-
Jeffrey Ball
jeff_ballJeffrey Ball, a writer whose work focuses on energy and the environment, is a scholar-in-residence at Stanford’s Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance and a lecturer at Stanford Law School. He also is a nonresident senior fellow in the Energy Security and Climate Initiative at Brookings.
Nonresident Senior Fellow
-
Ahmadou Aly Mbaye
Ahmadou Aly Mbaye is a professor of economics at the University Cheikh Anta DIOP (UCAD) in Dakar, Senegal and a senior research associate at the Centre for Development Research (ZEF, University of Bonn, Germany). He currently holds the position of director of the Laboratoire d’Analyse des Politiques de Developpement (LAPD).AhmadouAlyMbayeNonresident Senior Fellow
Vice-chancellor
-
Warwick J. McKibbin
WarwickMcKibbinWarwick J. McKibbin has a Vice Chancellor’s Chair in Public Policy and is director of the Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis in the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University (ANU). He is also an ANU public policy fellow; a fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences; a distinguished Fellow of the Asia and Pacific Policy Society; a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings in both the Economic Studies and Global Economy and Development programs. At Brookings, he is also co-director of the Climate and Energy Economics Project and a scholar in the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy.
Nonresident Senior Fellow
Distinguished Professor of Economics & Public Policy
-
Barry G. Rabe
BarryRabeBarry Rabe is a nonresident senior fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings and the J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Professor of Public Policy at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan where he holds the Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship in Environmental Policy. Rabe’s work examines the political feasibility and durability of environmental policy. His research has included analysis of the conditions under which political systems are capable of adopting and sustaining market-based carbon pricing policies such as carbon taxes or cap-and-trade, as examined in his 2018 MIT Press book, “Can We Price Carbon?” He is currently extending that analysis into examining the political and technical viability of applying market and regulatory tools to other greenhouse gases, including methane and hydrofluorocarbons. Rabe is also a co-author of the 2020 Brookings Press book “Trump, the Administrative Presidency, and Federalism,” which analyzes the unique dynamics of President Trump’s administrative presidency on climate change and other issues.
Nonresident Senior Fellow
-
Glenn D. Rudebusch
GlennRudebuschGlenn Rudebusch is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Rudebusch joined Brookings in 2022 after several decades at the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, where he was most recently an Executive Vice President and Senior Policy Advisor.
Nonresident Senior Fellow
-
Todd Stern
tsterndcTodd Stern is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution concentrating on climate change. Stern served from January 2009 until April 2016, as the special envoy for climate change at the Department of State. He was President Obama’s chief climate negotiator, leading the U.S. effort in negotiating the Paris Agreement and in all bilateral and multilateral climate negotiations in the seven years leading up to Paris.
Nonresident Senior Fellow
-
Rahul Tongia
DrTongiaRahul Tongia is a nonresident senior fellow in the Energy Security and Climate Initiative at the Brookings Institution and is currently a senior fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress. His work focuses on technology and policy, especially for sustainable development.
Nonresident Senior Fellow
-
Peter J. Wilcoxen
Peter J. Wilcoxen is a nonresident senior fellow in Economic Studies as well as the co-director of the Brookings Climate and Energy Economics Project. Wilcoxen’s research focuses on environmental and energy policy, especially national and international policies to address climate change. He is a professor in the Department of Public Administration and International Affairs at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University.
Nonresident Senior Fellow
