Jennifer Kitt’s
Letter

Foreword

When I think about why this work matters, I don’t start with numbers—I start with people. Families displaced by wildfires and floods. Farmers facing unpredictable seasons. Children breathing polluted air. Communities rebuilding after storms that previously came just once in a generation.

Climate change is a threat multiplier— intensifying hunger, disease, displacement, and instability.

But philanthropy can be a solutions multiplier. It can move quickly—deploying capital, testing new approaches, and unlocking far greater investment. Philanthropy cannot solve the climate crisis alone, but it plays a critical role in helping solutions that improve people’s lives take root, scale, and endure. Where public budgets and markets cannot move fast enough, philanthropy can help lead the way.

Climate giving represents approximately 2.1 percent of global philanthropy—roughly $12–18 billion annually.  That remains far short of what is needed. Climate philanthropy must grow to at least $50 billion annually to address the scale of the challenge.

The opportunity for progress is enormous. With more than $450 trillion in global wealth, the resources already exist, and critically, so do many of the solutions.

Climate Lead has identified more than 400 high-impact solutions already underway, with hundreds more under analysis. Today, $5 billion would fund 80 of the most pressing and effective climate solutions ready for deployment around the world. The challenge is not finding solutions; it is funding them fast enough.

Every tenth of a degree of warming avoided matters. The faster we act, the more lives we protect and the more time we create for communities and nature to recover.

Philanthropy is not a zero- sum game. There is enough capital, creativity, and commitment to make progress across multiple fronts.

The challenges we face are deeply connected, and so is our capacity to respond to them together. The work ahead is pressing, but there is also deep purpose and joy in building a healthier, more resilient, and more equitable world.

Jennifer Kitt
President, Climate Lead