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

The philanthropic organization announced the strategy is unprecedented in the foundation’s 110-year history.



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.”

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Printer’s Pension Receives $20.6M From PBGC

The plan was projected to become insolvent next year, when it would have had to cut benefits nearly in half.


The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation granted $20.6 million to the Paper Handlers-Publishers Pension Plan, a multiemployer pension for workers in the printing industry.

The New York City-based plan had 244 participants and was projected to become insolvent in 2024, absent a special financial assistance grant. At that time, it would have had to fall back on PBGC guaranteed levels, which would mean a 45% cut in benefits.

Funding via the Special Financial Assistance Program is now projected to keep recipients solvent through 2051.

According to the fund’s Form 5500, the plan had 24 active participants at the end of 2021, 116 retired participants receiving benefits and 31 entitled to receive benefits in the future. The plan had $5.76 million in assets and was 21.3% funded.

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The SFA provision of the American Rescue Plan Act allows for PBGC funding for severely underfunded multiemployer pension plans. Funds that receive assistance must monitor the interest resulting from the grant money as separate from other sources of funding.

The PBGC requires that at least two-thirds of the money it provides be invested in “high-quality fixed income investments.” The Final Rule on Special Financial Assistance, issued in July 2022, states that the other third can be invested in “return-seeking investments,” such as stocks and stock funds.

 

 

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