Destroying refrigerant gases before they escape into the atmosphere. Using artificial intelligence to track soil carbon. Designing better batteries for a low-carbon future. Engaging Indigenous knowledge to restore ecosystems. Exploring how Arctic phytoplankton store carbon. These are just some of the twenty three bold, interdisciplinary projects funded this year by Yale Planetary Solutions (YPS), which awarded more than $2 million in its latest round of grants to tackle the planet’s most pressing environmental challenges.

A campus-wide initiative bringing together Yale leaders in service of addressing the climate crisis, YPS has now awarded a total of more than $7 million to eighty nine projects since 2022. This year’s grant program is funded by the Three Cairns Climate Impact Innovation Fund with additional generous support from the Natural Carbon Solutions Fund, the Simon Bates Catalyst Fund, and the Birnbaum-Harford Planetary Solutions Translation Fund, with co-funding from the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture and the Office of the Provost AI initiatives.

“These grants are integral to the mission of Yale Planetary Solutions, convening Yale’s scholarship in the sciences, arts, and humanities to power impact-focused planetary solutions,” Provost Scott Strobel says. “The unique interdisciplinary structure of these grants allows projects to come to fruition that, without funding from Yale Planetary Solutions, might never have happened.”

Read more about this year’s grants, including the debut of the “Constellation Grant,” the largest ever awarded by YPS, supporting a team developing a portable, low-temperature method for destroying hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants.