IT’S A ONE-TO-ONE EQUATION. One metric ton of carbon dioxide can be reduced from the earth’s atmosphere by 2030 for every philanthropic dollar spent on mitigation efforts.
That’s the conclusion of a new study called “Changing the Game” funded by the Marin Community Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. It was also supported by the Equation Campaign, an anti-fossil fuel organization started by the great-great-grandchildren of John D. Rockefeller, who in 1870 founded Standard Oil, once the largest corporation in the United States.
One metric ton is 2,204.6 pounds. It has the same weight as a great white shark or 400 bricks. An average American produces enough carbon dioxide each year to fill over three Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to the Climate Portal of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“There are a lot of donors that care about environmental and climate issues,” said Rhea Suh, executive director of the Marin Community Foundation, about the Marin residents her foundation serves. “But because people perceive it as a global issue, I think they have a really hard time understanding that anything local can make a difference globally. This report is an attempt to say it’s actually the only difference you can make. Where do you think most policy solutions come from? They usually don’t come from the United Nations.”
Keeping our cool
The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal, a 2024 report cited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is an assessment of atmospheric carbon removal needed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid climate destruction. The report concludes that 7 to 9 gigatons of carbon removal will be required globally each year by 2050. A gigaton is a billion metric tons. Trees and oceans absorb a lot of that, but humans need to reduce the emissions we produce to meet that goal.
Changing the Game examines 15 local carbon mitigation efforts in the U.S. and Canada. The analysis only includes efforts that had quantifiable carbon impacts and excludes efforts that failed for one reason or another.
The efforts in the study included state and local legislation, like California’s law that requires manufacturers to sell zero-emissions trucks, and renewable energy developments like solar and wind energy facilities.
Supply-side efforts in the study included actions like closing coal plants around Chicago or stopping the Keystone XL pipeline from transporting crude oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast. Other efforts included quasi-governmental programs to help communities transition to sustainable technologies.
Suh said she was not sure if there have been studies on the efficacy of wind and solar projects in the county’s open lands, but Marin residents have an appetite for climate mitigation, and big results can happen when local communities become more energy independent.
“When every community center, every medical center, every school has a solar panel on it, what happens to the overall emissions?” she asked. “I would imagine that it goes down considerably. What happens to the ability for each of those institutions to be more resilient over time because of the cost savings and the opportunity to not be so reliant on an increasingly unreliable electricity grid in California? I think there are opportunities to do that through renewable energy uptake, through better transportation systems and through one of our biggest challenges — housing.”
The changing political climate
Before working for various foundations, Suh worked on regional and national climate policy in the U.S. Department of Interior in President Barack Obama’s administration. For five years, she ran the National Resources Defense Council, an international nonprofit environmental advocacy group.
Suh said she has seen the political pendulum swing from President Joe Biden’s administration, which enacted major climate policies affecting all levels of government, to President Donald Trump’s administration, where that progress is being completely erased.
“Environmental policy was solidly bipartisan for more than a decade with overwhelming majorities in both houses,” Suh said, pointing out that it was President Richard Nixon, a Republican, who passed national environmental laws in the early 1970s.
“Then sometime in the ’80s and ’90s, it started to become more partisan,” she said. “We’re now in a state where almost everything environmental, and certainly everything climate, is highly partisan. So, how do you continue the progress, even in Republican administrations? It’s coming from state and local areas. It’s fully in our wheelhouse. There’s a huge amount of opportunity, let alone return on investment.”
Changing the Game can be found online.
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