Clean energy funding with Clean Air Task Force

Electricity is the part of the energy system that is going well. Heavy industry, long-distance transport, cement, steel and heat are not, and they are a large share of global emissions. This program works on those, on the view that the remaining problem is mostly technological and needs options that do not yet exist at cost.

Three strands run together. Modelling and systems analysis to work out which policies and technologies would actually matter, rather than which are popular. Technology work to help emerging options reach commercial scale, including carbon capture and storage, advanced geothermal, and nuclear designs that are simpler, safer and cheaper to build. And policy advocacy to turn those into rules and public funding.

Several campaigns target pollutants with outsized short-term warming effects: methane leakage from oil and gas production, black carbon from diesel engines, shipping and biomass burning, and shipping fuel standards in the Arctic. These are cheap to fix relative to their effect on near-term temperature, and they are chronically under-addressed.

The organization is Clean Air Task Force, whose earlier campaign work contributed to the retirement of a large share of United States coal capacity.

Canadians receive an official Canadian donation receipt for gifts made through Rethink Charity. See our guide to climate giving in Canada for how this compares with the other options.