Organizations supported by philanthropy have unquestionably had a meaningful positive impact on our world and society. Yet everything nonprofits and foundations have achieved and everything we hope to do has been possible only because we could assume a relatively stable physical and social environment that makes long-term planning, investment, and commitment feasible. We have, indeed, taken this for granted, often working to improve this foundation, but always able to count on its baseline existence and durability. Without this, nothing could or would have been accomplished.
But what if the foundation is itself at risk? What should grant makers do when the social and political and environmental circumstances that have made our work and progress possible begin falling apart? Because, make no mistake, that is what’s happening now as a result of climate change. The damage to our planet is already burdening our political and economic systems, but these stresses will grow exponentially in the coming years — ravaging the lives of our children and their children for many generations unless we act to mitigate climate change now. One needn’t believe that global warming will cause the end of civilization as we know it to recognize the crushing demands it will put on our physical, economic, political, and social systems, with devastating consequences for everyone.
Certainly philanthropy can play a role alleviating these perils. Philanthropic support alone won’t eliminate them, obviously — no more than it can, alone, eliminate poverty, racism, or any other societywide challenge. Philanthropy can, however, play a pivotal role creating the conditions for government and business leaders, whose reach is greater, to act. Ways and means to do so abound. Yet the amount of global philanthropy aimed at putting the world on the path to a reasonable climate future is disgraceful — there’s no other word for it — with no more 3 percent of giving addressed to global warming.
This is profoundly, unfathomably, maddeningly shortsighted. Any grant maker who just chugs along on the same issues without addressing climate is, truly, fiddling while the world burns — particularly given the certainty that whatever short-term progress is made through these efforts will be lost if climate change continues unchecked.
Think about that last point for a moment because it goes to the heart of the matter. What do foundation officers and directors believe will happen when extreme storms, floods, droughts, heat waves, and fires become pervasive and routine? When the oceans are all but dead, freshwater supplies have become scarce, crop yields plummet, and prices for food and other essentials soar? When cities start suffering the remorseless effects of continuing sea rise, and mass migrations that dwarf what we see today threaten borders everywhere? What do they think will happen when all these things are occurring at the same time? Whom do they think will suffer the consequences most? Whose social and economic gains do they think will be sacrificed first? It will be, of course, the poor, the elderly, the young, the marginalized. It’s impossible to ponder such consequences — and these are relatively certain and far from the worst that might happen — and think that anything will go on as before or that anyone will remain unaffected.
Yet staggeringly few foundations give the climate threat priority. I just don’t see how that can be justified. Not because climate is more important than everything else, but because climate is inextricably connected to everything else. Connected in the sense that if we fail to keep global warming within tolerable limits, the cascading costs and effects will undo whatever has been done on other fronts. Simply put, if we fail on climate, we fail on everything.
Am I wrong about that? If so, I wish someone would explain why. And if not, I want to know how anyone can keep sitting on the sidelines. If we care about our children and future generations, I cannot believe we would bequeath them this disaster when it’s still within our reach to prevent it, and for pennies on the dollar compared with what they’ll need to do.
Collaborating in Philanthropy
The language in those last few paragraphs is blunt — blunter than is typical in philanthropy circles. But only because so many foundation leaders keep sidestepping the seriousness of the threats and, every bit as important, their capacity to do something about them. A friendly reader, worried that my tone could be counterproductive, observed that “it’s not easy for people to think about the message when they’re being scolded.” But it’s long past time for politesse.
It may be that some, perhaps many, grant makers recognize the urgent need to address global warming but shy away because they are unsure what they can do about a challenge this big and complex. They focus instead in arenas where the path to impact is easier to see or seems more certain. That is an understandable reaction: how even to begin getting one’s arms around such a monumentally wicked problem?
But you need not figure this out by yourself from scratch. Philanthropy is most effective when done collaboratively, and established coalitions of grant makers exist to help those just getting started in making grants for climate changes. Other philanthropists, not to mention experienced staff members at other philanthropic and nonprofit organizations, already are gathering data, sharing strategies and experience, and helping each other. These grant-maker collaboratives offer a straightforward way to learn what needs to be done, who can do it effectively, who and what are being funded, and where the opportunities for greatest impact lie. You can easily find a group whose values correspond to yours and whose approach to philanthropy suits your organization.
One such collaborative is Climate Leadership Initiative — co-funded by climate veterans Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, Hewlett, MacArthur, Oak, Packard, and Sea Change — which has been designed to provide services, information, and support for new philanthropists interested in understanding the climate problem and learning where and how they can have the most impact. Drawing on connections to existing grant makers and nonprofits already focused on climate change, businesses, government agencies, and other organizations, the Climate Leadership Initiative can help new donors learn about the range of possible solutions, determine where their particular interests lie, and connect with appropriate grantees and other partners so they can hit the ground running. It’s a wholly new kind of organization in the field of philanthropy and a terrific way to become an effective part of what will be, if we succeed, the most important philanthropic effort in history.
The Problem of Time
To be clear, I am not arguing that grant makers must drop everything they currently do and focus exclusively on climate. We haven’t done that at Hewlett: A third of our grant dollars go to these matters, but we remain fully committed to our other grant-making programs and longstanding aims and objectives. To hold climate change within tolerable limits, we need more resources — including not just money but also the energy and ingenuity that a wider community of foundations provides. We do not, however, need everything. Other problems and purposes still matter, and we need not and should not backslide or put everything else on hold.
What I am urging is this: Even while supporting whatever else they care about, grant makers should also dedicate some significant portion of their efforts and resources to mitigating climate change. I direct this plea particularly to new foundations and philanthropists, those who are still figuring out where their interests lie and where they can do the most good. Here is where: because these challenges threaten the bedrock on which all else depends. And now is when: because while time is running out, it’s not too late, and you can make a big difference.
If enough join us, we can do this. In the last 10 years, global efforts have cut the climate risk almost in half. Today, between what has been done and what is in progress, we are on a plausible pathway to preventing the increase in global average temperature from exceeding 3 degrees Celsius — incredible progress by any measure, particularly given that the entire global economy ran on fossil-based fuels when we began.
Forestalling the final degree or degree-and-a-half rise, which would reach the goal of the Paris accord, will definitely be more difficult. But between proven technologies and technologies well along in development, we have the tools we need. And if averting the intolerable burdens we are now dumping on future generations isn’t sufficient motivation, the transition could, if done sensibly, generate significant economic benefits.
The problem is time. We were slow to get started, and while a great deal of progress has been made, further progress is still being obstructed by self-interested industries (how do the folks who lead these enterprises look their children in the eye?) working with politicians who have let resentment of political opponents cloud their judgment. We have no more than 10 to 12 years left to keep the average global temperature increase within 1.5 degrees Celsius; we have approximately 20 years to stay below 2 degrees (after which things begin to get really scary). To reach either target, we need to pick up the pace of progress right away.
We are winning the fight to eliminate greenhouse-gas emissions, just not fast enough. Which is why we need more philanthropic resources now. We might still fail even if philanthropy does all it can; we definitely will fail if it does not. That’s a risk we cannot afford to take, if not for ourselves, then for our children and grandchildren.
It’s time to stop fiddling and help put out the fire.
