Entertaining the thought of winning on climate change requires us to keep two apparently opposed ideas in mind: first, that we are living in a time of escalating peril and crisis, and second, that major progress against climate change is entirely possible over the next 10 years. After all, with fires burning, storms raging, and communities suffering through ‘once-in-a-century’ heat waves across the globe, it’s not at all obvious that the world has made any headway against the worsening climate crisis.

But in fact, there has been significant progress. Over the past decade, the world has also seen some important advances—beginning to bend the curve of the planet’s future away from the worst-case scenarios imagined just a few years earlier. And as a virtuous cycle of wins generates momentum, we can turn the fight around.

In interviews, a Bridgespan Group team asked funders, former and current government officials, leaders of climate collaboratives, and frontline leaders around the world to name the most significant climate change wins or signs of progress over the past two decades. Those most frequently cited include the Beyond Coal campaign in the United States, which has helped retire two-thirds of coal plants in the nation; the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, the 2016 global agreement to eliminate climate-warming hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs); the movement for Indigenous peoples and local communities’ land tenure, which has the potential to protect a vast amount of carbon-storing forest and grassland; and the landmark US Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022. Importantly, philanthropy played a significant role in all four.

There was also great diversity among the responses. Policy wins, technology, market dynamics, and grassroots action all had a role to play in addressing climate change to date—and will continue to do so into the future. This diversity of perspectives about past wins suggests there’s no current consensus about the most promising pathway for progress against climate change. It also highlights an important opportunity for funders—there are many potential pathways to progress, and all of them will be needed.

That said, three climate philanthropy practices emerged as likely to be especially important in the decade ahead:

  1. Investing in early efforts connected to a big goal
  2. Joining other climate actors through existing structures
  3. Supporting the equitable implementation of laws, treaties, and policy changes

Read the full article about climate change philanthropy by Henry Platt, Brian Burwell, and Sonali Patel at Alliance Magazine.