Climate change presents an existential threat to human civilization, and the IPCC report of August 2021 sounds like “a death knell for coal and fossil fuels before they destroy our planet." With cities generating more than 70% of current global CO2 emissions, and with 90% of future population growth occurring in urban areas, it is a societal imperative that cities rapidly transition to a low-carbon future.
This workshop was a rapid-fire, high-level exploration of how to model urban interventions that could enable low-carbon (ultimately zero-carbon) cities, using the MIT-Kendall Square district as the case study. We focused on two questions:
- What would be required for MIT-Kendall Square to achieve zero-carbon in 20 years?
- Can social performance be simultaneously increased to create a model entrepreneurship community?
Projects:
Climate change presents an existential threat to human civilization, and the IPCC report of August 2021 sounds like “a death knell for coal and fossil fuels before they destroy our planet." With cities generating more than 70% of current global CO2 emissions, and with 90% of future population growth occurring in urban areas, it is a societal imperative that cities rapidly transition to a low-carbon future.
This workshop was a rapid-fire, high-level exploration of how to model urban interventions that could enable low-carbon (ultimately zero-carbon) cities, using the MIT-Kendall Square district as the case study. We focused on two questions:
- What would be required for MIT-Kendall Square to achieve zero-carbon in 20 years?
- Can social performance be simultaneously increased to create a model entrepreneurship community?