The Climate Center Annual Report 2020
Efren Carrillo, Board Chair
Ellie Cohen, CEO
Climate-Safe California
Our Climate-Safe California Campaign employs dozens of scalable solutions that are available right now to get us on track to reverse the climate crisis. The campaign calls upon the State of California to commit by 2022 to accelerating existing state policy timelines to achieve 80% below 1990 levels of GHG emissions and net-negative emissions by 2030. The campaign also insists that policies ensure lower-income communities are no longer disproportionately harmed by fossil fuels and climate impacts and that we implement a just transition to clean energy that leaves no workers behind.
The Current Reality
The latest climate science supports what millions of people around the world are experiencing daily: the impacts of climate change are hitting harder and faster than expected, posing grave threats to human health and well-being. Children, the elderly, and people living in low-income communities are disproportionately affected.
With 9 of 15 global tipping points now active, what we do today can either unleash an inhospitable hothouse Earth or secure a safe climate well into the future. As the science and climate reality demand, our only hope for a vibrant, healthy, and equitable future for all is to enact bold climate policies now, not decades from now.
With the economic turmoil created by COVID, we have a once in a generation opportunity to invest in climate solutions at a scale that previously may have felt impossible.
Guiding Principles
Our guiding principles for Climate-Safe California include Climate Justice for lower-income communities and a Just Transition for workers in the fossil fuel industry, who will have to find new livelihoods to adjust to a fossil-free world.
The Target: The State of California must set a target to enact by 2025 the suite of policies required by science to put us on track for net-negative emissions by 2030
The Targets
Our overarching goal is for California to commit to 80% below 1990 levels of GHG emissions and net-negative emissions by 2030, accelerating timelines for existing state policies. We are working with dozens of partners to enact by 2025 the bold policies required by science that will put California on track for net-negative emissions (sequestration greater than emissions or becoming a net carbon sink) by 2030.
The Plan
We must accelerate the phase-out of fossil fuels development, production, and use and increase carbon sequestration through soils to remove the carbon we have already dumped into the atmosphere. We must also immediately invest in Community Energy Resilience to help cope with the climate impacts that we are already experiencing. We also urgently need to generate funding to rapidly implement these solutions at scale.
The Strategy
In order to execute our plan, we are collecting endorsements of the platform and establishing a statewide Climate-Safe California alliance with labor, healthcare, environment, justice, businesses, and civic leader partners. As part of this alliance, we are building regional partnerships in target communities across California and leveraging partnership expertise. At the same time, we are building clout in Sacramento to secure early policy wins and launching a strategic social media and communications effort to build public understanding and political will for the path forward.
To further develop the platform, we are engaging experts to develop science-based pathways and policies for net-negative emissions by 2030. With these experts, we will publish white papers and op-eds to support our policy and communications objectives.
Needed Resources
To address the climate crisis and help California regain its urgently needed climate leadership, we must raise an estimated $25 million over the next five years. We have raised $2 million to date and are working to secure another $2 million by the spring of 2021.
Funds will cover the cost of additional staff including a Director of Philanthropy, Partnership Manager, Policy Director, and Labor Outreach Coordinator. We are also using these dollars to support core partner organization participation as well as engage scientists, economists, and other experts in developing key policies, white papers, and opinion pieces. This funding will allow us to hire additional staff, including a Development Director, a Grant Writer, a Labor Relations Manager, a Communications Director, and a Partnership Coordinator.
Thank you for your generosity that makes our urgent work possible! For more information, please contact karenb @ theclimatecenter.org.
“[Climate-Safe Califonia] is urgent and desperately needed. Also urgent is a just transition and safety net for those working in the fossil fuel industry. We must not leave people behind as seen in the coal industry.”
– Carmen Ramírez, Mayor Pro Tem City of Oxnard and public interest attorney
Our recent accomplishments
We launched our Climate-Safe California campaign this year and it is taking off. We have hundreds of endorsements to-date from businesses, non-governmental organizations, and government officials. These leaders have affirmed that accelerated state timelines for greenhouse gas reductions with equitable resilience measures and just transition for those employed in fossil fuel industries are paramount to ensuring a safe and healthy California.
Since COVID hit, we have hosted more than a dozen webinars with partners, engaging over 1,500 participants on a range of issues that inform our Climate-Safe California platform. Through these online gatherings, our supporters have heard from business, civic, environmental justice, labor, and community leaders. These partners are joining forces with us to push for the legislation needed to rapidly accelerate emissions reductions equitably at the scale required.
We have also collaborated extensively with partner organizations on letters of support to legislators to advocate for accelerating California’s greenhouse gas reduction targets to be more in line with the science and to prioritize lower-income communities with funding. We are so grateful to our partners for their persistence in working for equitable and just solutions to the climate crisis.
Our business network remains devoted to a climate-safe future and we have so much admiration for their determination, despite the enormous challenges they have faced this year. In particular, we are so grateful to all the sponsors of our Community Energy Resilience Series for coming through to ensure that we were able to host our policy summit to gather so many civic, business, and environmental justice leaders together for an important conversation about equitable clean energy resilience in the face of climate change. The urgency of solving the climate crisis and related environmental justice crisis has never been more clear.
We have made substantial progress on Community Energy Resilience with state regulators and legislators. Thanks in part to our efforts, the California Public Utilities Commission recently made a ruling that will make it easier for local governments to plan microgrids in California. In the legislature, we have been working with Senator Henry Stern’s office on SB 1215, which will help California communities to build out clean and equitable energy systems. Additionally, because of our work over the past year with many of our partners, the State added $50 million to the budget for Community Energy Resilience. Most recently, we launched our Community Resilience Energy webinar series that has drawn over 1,000 attendees, including many from other countries.
We continue to champion Community Choice Energy in the Central Valley, where we know it will bring economic co-benefits, and we have seen how successful electricity sector greenhouse gas reductions have been in communities that have launched Community Choice Agencies. We are pleased that our work has paid off, as the Stockton City Council recently approved a feasibility study, a major milestone. In Fresno, we continue to build strong community support with over 100 organizations joining our Friends of Community Choice Energy coalition.
Financials
Funding Sources
Funding Sources
| Individual Donations | $ 566,070 |
| Foundation Grants | $ 338,500 |
| Business Sponsorship | $ 170,346 |
| Gov't Grants & Contracts | $ 400,912 |
| Events/Other | $ 46,643 |
| Reserves | $ 142,924 |
| TOTAL | $ 1,665,395 |
|---|
Expenses
Expenses
| Climate-Safe CA | $ 1,212,699 | 73% |
| Finance & Admin | $ 249,300 | 15% |
| Development | $ 203,396 | 12% |
| TOTAL | $ 1,665,395 | 100% |
|---|
For our most recent, detailed financial statements, click here.
Thanks to you, our donors
You, our donors, are a vital part of our work. We know that you are vital partners integrally involved with our work. As community members, business leaders, scientists, labor, environmental and social justice groups, and youth, you are critical to achieving rapid greenhouse gas reductions are the most current science and rapidly worsening climate reality demand.
We partner on advocacy for needed climate legislation in Sacramento, webinars to galvanize thought leaders in the movement, and social media campaigns to provide support to decision-makers for taking the bold action required. Our partners work with us on a range of issues that support our Climate-Safe California Campaign, including Community Energy Resilience, Community Choice Energy, Carbon sequestration in soils, clean mobility, and more.
See our list of individual donors here.
See our list of business donors here.
“I strongly endorse the goal of Climate-Safe California to achieve net-negative emissions by 2030; 2050 is too late. The campaign’s focus on science, urgency, and policy is exactly what’s needed – and California must lead the way.
–Terry Tamminen, former CAL EPA Secretary under Governor Schwarzenegger, former CEO of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation and President of Seventh Generation Advisors
Legacy: Eunice Foote Planned Giving Society
We have just kicked off a new project to honor the people who ensure that our work on the climate continues until the world has followed California’s lead to implement policies to save our earth for generations to come. We have just named this group “The Edith Foote Society”. Edith Newton Foote was an American scientist, who in 1856 discovered the cause of global warming, 3 years before John Tyndall published work on heat-trapping gases. We honor her dedication to science and her pioneer work that so many have followed after her. Please let us know if you included us in your estate plans so that we may properly acknowledge your dedication to our work. If you are interested in joining others to secure our future, please contact Karen Barnes at karenb [at] theclimatecenter.org or click here to learn more.
Our Board & Staff
We continue to actively expand and diversify our board and staff across the state to achieve our urgent Climate-Safe California goals. For a full listing of our Board and staff members, see here.
Thank you for being part of The Climate Center family.
Here are some photos from the past year.
