Grant Makers Boost Climate-Change Commitments by $3 Billion. Michael Towner, Iconic Legacy.

29 foundations capped the  3 day Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco with an announcement of $3 billion in new pledges to reduce the rate of global warming.

The funds will be deployed over the next five years. The announcement came in response to criticism that philanthropy has chronically underfunded one of the planet’s most vexing challenges.

There is no overarching strategy guiding the group of foundations. Each institution plans to attack climate change using its own approach, whether it means developing alternative fuels, "re-greening" deforested lands, pressing for carbon-emission limits, or another strategy.

The $3 billion is a "down payment" on increased philanthropic investment, said Charlotte Pera, president of the ClimateWorks Foundation.

"There is a strong recognition from the philanthropic community that this issue is both urgent and long-term," she said. "I’m confident that there will be a lot of coordination on how these funds are spent going forward."

In 2015, the most recent year for which Foundation Center data is available, less than 1 percent of grants from the nation’s largest 1,000 grant makers went to address climate change.

The tide of new spending from institutional philanthropy comes as the federal government has withdrawn efforts to fight climate change. In June 2017, President Trump announced his intention to withdraw from the multinational Paris climate agreement, which laid out pathways to achieve a slowdown in global warming.

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​The $4 billion total includes a $600 million commitment that the Hewlett Foundation announced in December. That announcement, says Larry Kramer, Hewlett’s president, was part of a 2 year campaign to get other donors interested in the topic. He said it was a signal to other donors that climate change would impact their work even if they do not directly support the environment.
Larry Kramer is the current president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the former dean of Stanford Law School.

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Harrison ford delivered a speech at Moscone Center for the Global Climate Action Summit sponsored by California Gov. Jerry Brown. Ford didn't name President Donald Trump in his talk, but some of his comments obviously referred to the U.S. leader.
"For God's sake, stop electing leaders who don't believe in science," he said. "Or even worse, pretend they don't believe in science. Never forget who you're fighting for."

​Michael Towner

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