Active Funding Opportunities
Co-hosted by Bill Gates and Breakthrough Energy, Nat Simons, Laura Baxter-Simons, and their team, and the Climate Leadership Initiative (CLI), Funding Climate Impact spotlights highly promising solutions sourced by CLI that have been vetted by experts, are supported by experienced climate funders, and have clearly defined outcomes associated with increased funding.
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Fossil Free Energy Campaign
The European Climate Foundation (ECF) is making good progress with its multi-year effort to accelerate the phase out of fossil gas and coal in Europe’s power and buildings sectors. This essential response to the weaponization of energy in Russia’s war on Ukraine is simultaneously vital to address climate change. With the work of ECF and its partners, the EU is now close to finalizing an ambitious 2030 target of at least 42.5 percent of its energy coming from renewable sources—which almost doubles its existing share of renewables—alongside ambitious targets for efficiency and clean heating. The next phase of ECF’s strategy will focus on overcoming barriers to real-world delivery at the country level—including a growing backlash against clean energy driven in part by fossil fuel interests. This work has a three-year fundraising target of $210 (€193) million, and has secured more than $75 (€70) million toward its goal.
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Ukraine Green Iron and Steel
Systemiq, McKinsey & Co., and Breakthrough Energy are developing implementable blueprints for rebuilding Ukraine’s iron and steel complex using breakthrough clean technologies. These plans will chart the path to reconstructing Ukraine as a green iron and steel production hub—one that sustains its economy and furthers Europe’s clean energy transition. This effort has helped facilitate increased government buy-in for launching a Ukrainian green steel industry. It is now focused on developing a platform to build public/private partnerships spanning the iron and steel value chain and to get projects to the finance decision stage. Systemiq and its partners have raised $5 million toward this work, with $1 million remaining to meet its $6 million goal.
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U.S. Clean Grid Initiative
In June, the New York Times reported on how the U.S.’s fragmented electric grid—largely built to accommodate coal and gas plants—is becoming a major obstacle to efforts to fight climate change. Generating momentum for grid reform and development of new transmission at scale requires massive public support and enabling conditions. The Clean Grid Initiative is a coordinated philanthropic effort that engages with players at the local, state, regional, and federal levels, employing a sophisticated campaign approach comprising policy advocacy, coalition building, and strategic communications. Anna Foglesong, a veteran transmission policy expert and strategist, has recently come on board as its first managing director. The Clean Grid Initiative has raised $45 million toward its goal of $200 million over three years.
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Forests, People, Climate
Forests, People, Climate (FPC) is a global collaborative focused on ending tropical deforestation by 2030 while delivering just, sustainable development. Leveraging philanthropic support, FPC partners are advancing multiple interlinking strategies across Brazil, Indonesia, and the Congo Basin to halt and reverse forest loss, promote sustainable land use and development, and secure the rights and livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLC). FPC has raised nearly $800 million toward a goal of $2 billion over five years.
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Invest in Our Future
Recent legislation presents a historic opportunity for the U.S. to accelerate climate action, grow the clean energy economy, and invest in communities. Invest in Our Future—a hub for organizing philanthropy and deploying pooled fund capital—is working to maximize the benefits of this transformational legislation. By connecting beneficiaries to federal investments; removing barriers that slow progress; building the clean energy workforce; and generating widespread public support, Invest in Our Future will help increase uptake of federal funding, with the potential to unlock $370 billion to $1 trillion in public investment and catalyze significant private investment and innovation. To date, $200 million has been committed to Invest in Our Future’s goal of raising and distributing $500 million over the next three years.
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Allied Climate Partners
Allied Climate Partners (ACP) is a brand new philanthropic organization focusing on increasing the number of investible projects and businesses in emerging economies that speed decarbonization, make clean energy accessible to more people, and improve climate resilience. Recently, Ahmed Saeed, currently Asian Development Bank’s vice president for East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific, was named ACP’s chief executive officer. Saeed brings expertise across global capital markets, development finance, and government and will lead the expansion of ACP’s innovative approach to addressing a critical financing gap. In target markets, ACP selects and funds regional investment managers that then deploy risk-tolerant capital and expertise to help early-stage projects and businesses achieve financial close and attract third-party investment. ACP seeks to raise $235 million in philanthropy over 18 months to support and establish additional investment managers, and it has secured approximately $100 million toward this goal.
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Mission Possible Partnership
Mission Possible Partnership (MPP) is a global initiative of climate leaders and companies acting to catalyze and speed decarbonization of the world’s highest-emitting heavy industry and transport sectors. To succeed, MPP must help mobilize $3 trillion in public and private investment by 2030 to decarbonize cement, steel, aluminum, chemicals, aviation, trucking, and shipping. Since April, MPP has started to develop partnerships with major industrial companies to drive decarbonization in two new industrial hubs in Europe—in Spain and around the port of Rotterdam and its hinterland—while laying the foundations to kick off work in India and Brazil in the second half of the year if funding is confirmed. MPP’s goal is to raise $30 million over the next two years.