Our vision: Equipping local climate leaders for action
Climate Cabinet Education makes local climate change data and policy solutions actionable for key players on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Our big audacious vision is to ensure local advocates and policymakers have the resources they need to champion the clean energy transition — at scale.
The problem: Climate change is an issue that’s overwhelming, urgent, and complex. We can’t solve it with one solution, or solely in Washington DC. We need continued, sustained action at every level of government, in every year, for the next several decades. Over 500,000 people hold elected office in America, and these people have direct authority over clean energy decisions. This is a problem of scale.
Local offices make critical climate and environmental justice decisions: from state legislatures that allow toxic facilities to locate right next to communities of color, to municipal utilities and co-op boards which rely heavily on coal, sticking low-income communities with high energy costs. But with the sheer number of offices, it’s hard to know where to start — or what role each office must play. This overwhelming scope means that dollars keep flowing towards federal action, even when large opportunities lie locally.
Without a systematic way to identify big opportunities and support local leaders, key interventions are flying under the radar of national climate organizations and funders — at the expense of communities and climate progress.
Our solution: That’s why Climate Cabinet Education uses data, technology, and networks to aggregate, distill, and deliver key resources to key players — catalyzing climate action, at scale. Specifically, we use data science to identify the local jurisdictions and policymakers with the biggest climate opportunities in America — based on jurisdictional authority, local fossil fuel infrastructure fights, clean energy opportunities, and more. Alongside this “heatmap” of climate opportunities, we work with partners, donors, and cross-state networks to uplift local coalitions and media hooks, and ensure key players have the jurisdiction-specific policy resources they need for bold local action.
Our track record: On the data side: we’ve already built a data system that combines clean energy jobs, asthma rates, polling, and incumbent vote records for every state legislative district in America — and we’ve used this system to build out an interactive environmental justice advocacy tool for partners in Texas.
On the policy side: our Building Blocks of State Climate Policy toolkit has been downloaded by over 100 state legislators and is being used by at least 3 cross-state legislative support networks. We’re now scoping out a similar resource for Public Utility Boards, which make direct energy decisions.
In summary: State and local offices are on the frontlines of directing the clean energy transition and adapting to climate change’s impacts — but they chronically lack the resources they need. We can’t rely on the revolving door of power at the federal government to solve this whole-of-society problem. Climate change has a deadline we’re working towards, and it will require decades of sustained action at every level of government.
Our goals is to make sure the climate community can strategically invest in the highest priority local efforts — and ensure key players in those places don’t waste any time trying to figure out what they can do on climate, who else has done it, or how.
We don’t have time to waste.
