The COP27 climate summit offers an opportunity to make greater progress on transitioning to a low-emissions world while protecting nations and communities that are most affected by the impacts of climate change, as well as maintaining food and water security around the world — both of which are under stress. The summit also can advance innovations in how nations finance climate-resilient development and invest in future energy infrastructure.

We are seeing encouraging signs of progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions as renewable energy sources become more widely available and affordable, and here in the U.S., the recent passage of historic legislation to incentivize the shift to clean energy should help boost domestic efforts. Nevertheless, our country, along with much of the world, is still lagging behind in reaching critical emission-reduction targets. Without urgent and sustained action, extreme events such as this year’s record-breaking heat waves in the U.S., devastating droughts in China and Europe, and deadly floods in Pakistan could become the “new normal,” with society’s most vulnerable at particular risk.

We call upon world leaders in government, business, and civil society to continue to work together to forge effective and equitable solutions to the climate crisis. At the U.S. National Academies, we are committed to enlisting science, engineering, and medicine to inform these efforts so that together, we can create a more secure, more sustainable, and more prosperous future for all.

Marcia McNutt
President, U.S. National Academy of Sciences

John L. Anderson
President, U.S. National Academy of Engineering

Victor J. Dzau
President, U.S. National Academy of Medicine

Related Resources

• Greenhouse Gas Emissions Information for Decision-Making — Released last month, this report from the calls for a global clearinghouse for greenhouse gas emissions information to support decision-makers working to address climate change.

• A Research Strategy for Ocean-Based Carbon Dioxide Removal and Sequestration — Staff from the National Academies’ Ocean Studies Board are attending COP27 to discuss this recent report, which calls for a $125 million research program to learn more about how ocean carbon dioxide removal strategies could be used to mitigate climate change.

• Roundtable on Macroeconomics and Climate-Related Risks and Opportunities — This roundtable was recently launched to explore how the physical and transition effects of climate change relate to and affect macroeconomic performance and the implications for fiscal, monetary, and financial stability policies. 

• Accelerating Decarbonization of the U.S. Energy System — This 2021 National Academies report lays out a technical blueprint and 10-year policy road map for decarbonization by 2050. The second and final report from this committee will be released next year.

• Getting to Net-Zero by 2050 provides an at-a-glance look at findings and U.S. policy-relevant advice from several National Academies reports.

• The 2022 annual meeting of the National Academy of Engineering explored the challenges and opportunities to transitioning to a net-zero economy.

• The National Academy of Medicine launched the Action Collaborative on Decarbonizing the U.S. Health Sector, a public-private partnership of leaders from across the health system committed to improving the health care sector’s carbon footprint.

• The virtual Nobel Prize Summit “Our Planet, Our Future” in 2021, co-hosted by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Nobel Foundation, brought together more than 20,000 people from 200 countries to explore how to place the world on a path to a more sustainable future. A second summit is being planned for next year to address the issue of misinformation, which can disrupt the pursuit of evidence-based solutions to the world’s many challenges, including climate change.

• Visit the National Academies’ climate resources collection for more information.