UC Berkeley researchers and faculty presented work on a range of climate issues at the inaugural Resilient California Summit in Sacramento last week. They shared findings that help the state and its communities respond to climate change. 

Held from October 20 to 22 at the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center, the Summit convened about 1,000 public-sector, private-sector, research, and community practitioners. According to organizers, the event was designed to “explore, imagine and catalyze” the many facets of climate change impact. At the center was the rollout of California's Fifth Climate Change Assessment, a five-year research initiative spanning nine regions and about 70 reports.

“People look to California, our size, our visibility, our ambition, and our progress,” said Wade Crowfoot, California Secretary for Natural Resources at the opening plenary session. He spoke about the importance of California’s work in light of the absence of a national climate change assessment.

New Human Rights Report

The summit marked the release of Climate-Induced Human Displacement and Migration, co-authored by Betsy Popken, executive director of the Berkeley Human Rights Center, and Hossein Ayazi, co-director of research at the Othering & Belonging Institute. The report finds that climate change is reshaping where Californians live and work in a state already strained by high costs and a housing shortage. The effects vary across California's nine regions and fall hardest on the most vulnerable. The report identifies gaps in current systems and recommends ways to strengthen the state's response.

Community-informed Climate Justice

Charisma Acey, associate professor of city and regional planning, co-led the Assessment's Racial Equity and Climate Justice report with Margaretta Lin, Principal Investigator at the Institute of Urban & Regional Development. The report is expected by the end of 2026. Speaking at the opening plenary, Acey said the team took to heart a state mandate to center environmental justice. 

“Community and tribal knowledge really grounded the science,” Acey said about the report's inclusion of communities that have historically been excluded from climate action planning. At the Acey and Lin's conference session, attendees participated in roundtable discussions with invited members of six frontline communities: unhoused residents, incarcerated people, farmworkers, Urban Native communities, immigrants, and Black communities.

Nature Based Solutions

Louise Bedsworth, executive director of the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE) at Berkeley Law, moderated a panel on nature-based solutions. The session previewed a CLEE study due out in the coming weeks. Case studies from the session are available on the website. The study measures the jobs and economic impact of scaling nature-based solutions to meet state targets. Preliminary findings show these solutions deliver significant economic value. Bedsworth also co-authored the Fifth Climate Change Assessment's San Francisco Bay Area regional report.

Digital Tools for Wildfires

Researchers from a UC Berkeley-led, National Science Foundation-funded project showed how “digital twins,” data copies of real systems, can help communities prepare for wildfires. Simulations of the Oakland Hills and Inverness uncovered bottlenecks and efficiencies for vehicular evacuations. Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Kenichi Soga led the multi-stakeholder session with participation from UC Berkeley PhD student Paola Lorusso and Postdoctoral Researcher Alessandro Cardoni.

Research Posters

Researchers showed posters in the exhibit hall. Alice Galley, a Master of Public Policy student at the Goldman School of Public Policy, received a shout-out at a closing-day session for her poster, “Climate Preparedness of California Prisons.” Environmental Science, Policy & Management researchers Yocelyn B. Villa and Whendee L. Silver showed their poster "The Potential for Long-term Soil Carbon Sequestration from Compost Amendments to California Rangelands." This 17-year study filled a data gap on how compost supports carbon storage and ecosystem health in the long term.