Frontiers in Climate Systems Engineering

Climate systems engineering — consisting of open-systems carbon removal, sunlight reflection, and interventions to slow glacial melting — is increasingly part of the global debate about how societies could reduce the risks of climate change, alongside efforts to rapidly reduce carbon emissions. The individual approaches span different stages of scientific understanding and technical maturity, carry varying degrees of uncertainty and controversy, and raise distinct policy questions, but together they represent an urgent, growing frontier in climate science and policy.

This gathering will bring together leading researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholders to discuss and explore cutting-edge approaches for addressing climate change. Attendees will engage with expert perspectives on the potential benefits and risks associated with these emerging technologies.

Dates and times:

Monday, May 18, 2026 – Open to the public
Program: 1:00 PM – 4:30 PM CT
Networking reception: 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM CT
Registration link and detailed agenda to come shortly

Tuesday, May 19, 2026 – Expert-level discussions, by invitation
Program: 8:30 AM – 1:00 PM CT

Agenda for Monday, May 18, 2026 (Open to the public):

1:00 – 1:05 pm: Opening remarks from university leadership 

1:05 – 1:10 pm: CSEi overview from Faculty Director David Keith

1:25 – 2:15 pm: State of the field
UChicago faculty will provide an overview of the state of the science and technology in CSEi’s core research areas: carbon removal (CDR), sunlight reflection methods (SRM), and glacial interventions. For each research area, a representative from the private sector or civil society will also talk about private companies’ ability to procure these technologies and deploy them. 

• CDR (B. B. Cael)
• SRM (Mingyi Wang and Ken Caldeira)
• Glacial interventions (Doug MacAyeal and Marianne Hagen)

2:20 – 3:10 pm: Policy perspectives panel discussion
This fireside-chat-style discussion will address how climate systems engineering intersects with governance and international cooperation. Speakers include:  

• Manish Bapna, President and CEO, Natural Resources Defense Council  
• Hina Khar, former Foreign Minister of Pakistan 
• Pascal Lamy, Chair of the Climate Overshoot Commission, Former WTO Director-General and Vice-Chair of the Paris Peace Forum
• Justus Lehtisaari, Operaatio Arktis 
• Moderator: Michael Greenstone, Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth, Faculty Director 

3:30 – 4:20 pm: Viewpoints
This section will include two discussions focused on divergent viewpoints related to climate systems engineering.  

• Conversation with Stardust (Featuring Yanai Yedvab and Dakota Gruener)
  This session will feature a conversation between the founder of Stardust, a for-profit startup, and the CEO of Reflective, a nonprofit, exploring theories of the case for advancing sunlight reflection research in the public interest. The discussion will examine how different institutional models—private companies and nonprofit/public-interest research—approach technical feasibility, governance, and risk, and how private-sector visions for sunlight reflection fit within a broader landscape of independent science and policy.
• Left and Right: Political Fault Lines in Climate Systems Engineering (Moderated by David Wallace-Wells, science writer for The New York Times).
  The panel discussion aims to clarify where opposition is rooted in values versus evidence, where unexpected alignments may exist, and how these fault lines could shape the future of sunlight reflection.

4:25 – 4:30 pm: Closing remarks from David Keith

4:30 – 5:30 pm: Reception