EGC affiliates awarded new grants from Yale Planetary Solutions

Four EGC affiliates are among the recipients of the 2025 Yale Planetary Solutions (YPS) grants, supporting transformative research at the intersection of climate science, policy, and practice. These projects span critical themes including forest conservation using AI, sustainable agriculture powered by satellite technology, and soil natural capital accounting. They also explore innovative approaches to bridging the gap between knowledge and climate action, and integrating environmental expertise into national security planning. Together, these efforts reflect EGC’s commitment to advancing data-driven, interdisciplinary solutions to planetary challenges.

Project Title: Mobilizing Social Science and Practitioner Experience to Open New Channels from Climate Knowledge to Climate Action (Initiation Grant)

Project Leads:  Rene Almeling, Department of Sociology; Jessica Seddon, Jackson School of Global Affairs

The gap between climate evidence and climate action is striking. It is also not unique: knowledge of problems and solutions often outweighs substantive responses for other complex societal challenges such as poverty or violence. This project seeks to bring together insights from social scientific researchers and practitioners across a variety of issue areas to map the channels that connect knowledge to action, identify common ways in which they break down, and develop a menu of ways for researchers, policymakers, and institutional designers to strengthen the flow of evidence into action. The identified methods for inspiring action will be disseminated to science-policy practitioner communities and can be used to generate new curricular materials for graduate and undergraduate classes.

Project Title: Planning for a Yale Program in National Security, Intelligence, and the Environment (Initiation Grant)

Project Leads: Eli Fenichel, Yale School of the Environment; Jessica Seddon, Jackson School of Global Affairs; Karen Seto, Yale School of the Environment; Gerald Torres, Yale School of the Environment and Yale Law School

Being able to provide intelligence and security communities with the expertise they need to address climate change and other environmental risks will have long-term effects on efforts to develop planetary solutions to such challenges. However, there are barriers to developing a program that links these critical areas. One key challenge is that it requires bringing together topical expertise residing across academic disciplines with the practical expertise residing in the intelligence and national security communities. This project will begin building the bridges necessary to design a renowned program connecting these fields. In the long term, the aim is to train students at Yale for interdisciplinary careers where they can integrate sophisticated thinking about global environmental challenges into the daily work of the national security and intelligence communities.

Project Title: Harnessing AI for Climate Change Mitigation and Resilience (Acceleration Grant)

Project Leads:  Rohini Pande, Department of Economics; Lucy Page, University of Pittsburgh; Luke Sanford, Yale School of the Environment; Maike Pfeiffer, Yale School of the Environment

Climate change is transforming our planet, and deforestation threatens carbon sinks in vulnerable areas. Artificial Intelligence (AI) may provide promising tools for addressing mitigation and adaptation challenges in fast-growing but low state capacity countries like India. Current programs that offer incentives to landowners in exchange for sustainable land management practices often conserve forests under minimal threat, leaving endangered ecosystems vulnerable. This project reimagines forest conservation in India by using AI to identify critical carbon sinks before they’re lost. The team is also developing an AI tool that transforms climate predictions into actionable insights for local officials’ adaptation investments. These technology-powered climate solutions bridge science and impact, with outcomes measured as forests saved, carbon sequestered, and climate-smart investments deployed. 

Project Title: Incentivizing Sustainable Agricultural Practices Using Satellite Technology (Acceleration Grant)

Project Leads:  Nicholas Ryan, Department of Economics; Steven Brownstone, University of California, San Diego; Naveen Kumar G., BGS College of Engineering & Technology; Aparna Raturi, CarbonFarm

Climate change disproportionately affects poor countries and communities. Because traditional farming practices are resource-intensive and a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, agriculture is both highly vulnerable and a key opportunity for low-cost mitigation. This project targets methane emissions and water scarcity in rice farming by combining satellite monitoring with direct farmer incentives to promote techniques like Alternate Wetting and Drying and Direct Seeded Rice – practices that can reduce methane emissions by up to 79%, conserve groundwater, and reduce electricity demand for irrigation. Satellite-based verification makes it viable to track sustainable practices across fragmented smallholdings. The project team’s approach turns small-scale agriculture into a platform for measurable emissions reductions while improving farmer livelihoods.

Project Title: Natural Capital Accounting of Soil (Acceleration Grant)

Project Leads: Eli Fenichel, Yale School of the Environment; Stephen Wood, The Nature Conservancy; Mark Bradford, Yale School of the Environment.

Sustainable soil management is critical to mitigating climate change and improving water quality in freshwater and coastal ecosystems. This project aims to generate the first natural capital valuation of soil and lay the foundations for soil accounting. In partnership with The Nature Conservancy, the team intends to leverage tax assessment data, parcel-level farm practices, and soil properties to develop a prototype of soil monetary accounting. This analysis will be done with the Upper Mississippi River Foodscape project, a coalition of public, private, and civil society partners working to increase incentives for farmers to adopt farming practices that restore natural capital.

Read the Yale News Article announcing the 2025 YPS grant recipients.

The full list of YPS awarded projects can be found here.