Purpose
- Investigates causes tending to destroy or impair the free-market system.
- Explores and develops market-based solutions.
Summary
This application is to support Climate XChange's efforts to put forth market-driven solutions to climate change. Climate XChange achieves these impacts primarily through the State Climate Policy Network (SCPN) and State Climate Policy Dashboard (Dashboard). The SCPN is a platform of 16,500 state climate leaders that have access to programming, research, and direct support from Climate XChange to advance state climate policy. The Dashboard is a public database of 65+ climate policies across all 50 states that helps state actors and researchers better navigate technical policy information. Funding will provide added resources to the direct technical support, research and data analysis, and advocacy efforts that enable our network of state climate leaders to push forward sensible and just policy solutions to climate change.
Description
Climate XChange has progressed on three major fronts since the most recent grant from the Walker Foundation - the organizational Strategic Plan, our State Climate Policy Dashboard, and our State Climate Policy Network.
In 2022/2023, Climate XChange (CXC) underwent a thorough strategic planning process to develop a new 5-year strategic plan for the organization. That plan includes thorough policy and conceptual maps of the US energy system and climate needs, major policy bottlenecks and market barriers, and biggest value-adds across the environmental movement. That process has resulted in a three-pillar plan for CXC’s future that is centered around our State Climate Policy Network (SCPN), State Climate Policy Dashboard (Dashboard), and newcoming State Driven Policy Assistance Program.
The State Climate Policy Dashboard has grown significantly in scale, scope, and impact since launch in November 2021. The current Dashboard tracks 65+ policies across all 50 states, including policies in the areas of Climate Governance & Equity, Adaptation & Resilience, Electricity, Buildings & Efficiency, Transportation, Agriculture, and Industry. Our database now includes over 6,000 data points, including 23 policies in the renewable energy and efficiency sector, with a dozen organizational contributors. The full Dashboard features the work of over 100 organizations, including the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), and the Nature Conservancy (TNC).
CXC has also contracted with a digital firm to design a new website for the Dashboard, so that users can leverage a more sophisticated interface to compare, analyze, and visualize our policy data across state lines and easily navigate to the best resources that the climate movement has to offer. We have documented testimony and use cases by 17 research, advocacy, and academic organizations in the last year, including 5 citations in other policy research products. In aggregate, all Dashboard web pages have been viewed over 50,000 times.
Meanwhile, we have continued to grow our State Climate Policy Network. SCPN membership has grown from 16,500 to 17,800, with a projected growth rate of 15% for the year. We hosted 23 SCPN events in 2022, with 7,087 total live attendees. Written SCPN materials, which include policy explainers, national policy updates, and event recaps, had over 20,000 page views in 2022.
Our new member assistance model was a big area of expansion since the last grant by the Foundation. Under this model, CXC staff and partners provide direct technical support to members of the SCPN, including both government and non-government actors, on bill design and drafting, research, policy landscape analysis, and more. Since June 2022, we’ve assisted 40 state actors across 28 states, with 14 of those requests being multi-state or national in scope. Much of this assistance is driven by the institutional knowledge that Climate XChange possesses as the owner and curator of the State Climate Policy Dashboard.
We appreciate the support of the Foundation in accomplishing these successes. In following our strategic plan, we will be scaling our programs to meet the needs of the climate movement and address the state-based market imbalances and regulations that will best advance the energy transition. This includes growing the membership and reach of the State Climate Policy Network and providing new policy assistance and programmatic to our members to help them address their technical needs, particularly to capture new federal funding opportunities. This also includes vastly expanding the data layers, policy coverage, and partnerships surrounding the State Climate Policy Dashboard to establish it as one of the most powerful and preeminent climate policy tools available in the nation.
Purpose
State policy is a major driver of economic decisions in key sectors that contribute to climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. It is critical that actors at each level of the climate movement have access to the resources, networks, best practices, and knowledge sharing required to effectively move toward a clean energy economy that protects vulnerable communities, promotes economic growth, and creates jobs.
Energy markets are a complicated web of local, state, and federal policy, as well as many market actors such as generators, utilities, consumers, regional authorities, and financial institutions. CXC allows market actors to more readily access cutting-edge information on state policy that informs their on-the-ground decisions and influences decision makers on the most effective pathways to decarbonization.
Scope
The scope of this project is state-level policy across all 50 states.
Project Link https://climate-xchange.org/
Amount Approved$10,000.00
on 6/29/2022
(Check sent: 7/19/2022)
