Rockefeller Foundation Commits More Than $1B Over 5 Years to Climate Transition

The Rockefeller Foundation announced it plans to invest more than $1 billion over the next five years to advance global climate transition, a new investment strategy the philanthropic organization identifies as the first of its kind in the organization’s 110-year history.

“We believe climate change’s threats and the climate transition’s opportunities—especially for the most vulnerable—justify what will be the biggest and most impactful bet in our history,” Rajiv Shah, president of The Rockefeller Foundation, said in a release. “The strategy is designed around a simple idea: Humanity does not have to choose between addressing climate change and advancing human opportunity, we simply have to work in new ways and at a bigger scale and with new people and in new places to make sure everyone cannot just survive the climate crisis but thrive.”

According to the foundation, climate funding tends to be directed at either mitigating or adapting to climate change, rather than both. Its new strategy aims to integrate climate transition among its four main areas of focus: power, health, food and finance.

As part of the strategy, the foundation will earmark $35 million for climate-finance investments, including $5 million for grants for decarbonization and carbon removal strategies and $20 million for the development of climate-smart infrastructure in the U.S. It will also announce a series of new grants and initiatives in the coming months.

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“Current efforts to help people mitigate and adapt to climate change are insufficient,” the foundation’s release stated. “People’s interests reside at the nexus of both mitigation and adaptation, but current spending and action aims at one or the other. The best climate solutions will serve both.”

The foundation’s release emphasized that climate change is exacerbating inequities in the world’s financial system and estimates that $3.2 trillion more in spending on climate change is needed each year. Although its findings on climate transition are “dire,” the foundation stated that innovations and ideas exist that can slow the climate crisis and speed progress for people.

“But these transformations are incomplete and inequitable,” the foundation’s release reiterated. “They are underway in wealthier countries and communities, while special interests and structural barriers keep everyone else from joining in.”