Foundations Begin Investing In Climate

Change and Health: New Report

Karla Fortunato
June 17, 2015

From 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to Vatican City, global leaders are acknowledging
the threat of climate change to people around the world.
This recognition has come to philanthropy as well. Foundations are finding
compelling motives and innovative areas for making grants linking climate and
health. Grantmakers focused on communities, public health, and health disparities
are addressing climate change to achieve critical goals like population protection,
disease prevention, and community transformation.
While this philanthropic activity is nascent, the opportunities to have an impact are
substantial. In the words of Maria Neira of the World Health Organization (WHO),
Since 2007 I have described climate change as the defining issue for public health
in this century. Today, I would add that it is one of the greatest opportunities we
face to improve human health.
Grant making at the intersections of climate and health extends beyond
environmental action into areas like emergency preparedness, the U.S. public health
infrastructure, and transitions to healthier forms of energy, transportation, land use,
and community economic development.

A recent publication on Achieving a Climate for Health: Philanthropy to Promote

Health and Justice through the Challenges of Climate Change, jointly published by
the Health and Environmental Funders Network (HEFN) and ecoAmerica, outlines
these opportunities with examples of philanthropic engagement.
Protect People
Our climate system is warming, and this causes changes to systems that are critical
to health, like air quality, weather, water quality, and agriculture. Scientific
consensus on the projected effects of the changing climate is fueling plans to help
communities navigate and mitigate these impacts: from bolstering public health
infrastructure, to mapping vulnerable populations (like seniors and people with
disabilities), to developing town and city evacuation plans, to improving hospitals
ability to withstand weather events.
An early US investor on this front is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC). Its Climate-Ready States & Cities Initiative and Building Resilience Against
Climate Effects (BRACE) framework are helping sixteen states and two cities prepare
for upcoming impacts of climate change.
Foundations are engaging in people-protection as well. In Boston, the Barr
Foundation, the Boston Foundation, the Chorus Foundation, the Grantham
Foundation, the Henry P. Kendall Foundation, the Bank of America Foundation, and
the Ruth Lilly Philanthropic Foundation have supported a Green Ribbon Commission,
aimed at bringing business and other key leaders together to inform climate change
strategies for the city. In southern California, the California Endowment and San
Diego Foundation are working with regional leaders to focus preparedness and
health-protective action in communities of high need, such as low-income
communities or those projected to be harder hit by the effects of climate change.
The Kresge Foundation is focusing on vulnerable populations in urban communities
in the United States through a new climate initiative to bolster the voices and
influence of low-income urban groups in climate change planning and policies.
Prevention
Alongside population protection, philanthropy also is investing to reduce the
intensity of climate changes effectsreducing or preventing disease and reducing
the intensity and frequency of weather-related disasters. The Kresge Foundation and
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded a project exploring different public health
scenarios, noting that government actions on climate change in the next few years
could yield very different public health outcomes. Theres an important opening now
to prevent long-term harm by mitigating the extent of these climate change
impacts.
Funders are tackling this work in a number of ways. The New York Community Trust
is building a research base for health engagement in policy making through its
support of Columbia Universitys Mothers and Newborns study, which improves
understanding of the impacts of air pollution on healthy childhood development.

Other funders are supporting groups like the American Public Health Association
(APHA), American Lung Association, the Public Health Institute, the National Medical
Association, and Health Care Without Harm to amplify health and public health
engagement in climate policies.
Others are working directly to reduce use of highly polluting energy. The Energy
Foundations American Clean Energy Stories highlight both climate and economic
gains made through energy efficiency projects.
Transformation of Communities
A National Research Council study of the hidden costs of energy found $120 billion
in damages, mostly health damages, were being passed on to the American public
in 2005 from fossil fuel energy. The fact that climate change drivers in energy,
transportation, and agriculture have such big health impacts creates an opportunity
for collaboration across philanthropic sectorshealth, environment, equity, climate
and energy, smart growth, sustainable agriculture, economic developmentto work
toward health-enhancing community transformations.
What does this look like? The Liberty Hill Foundation helped academic and
community partners identify Los Angeles neighborhoods disproportionately
burdened by pollution, and then it funded efforts to clean up and green up local
businesses, which improved both air quality and job opportunities. Targeting climate
actionsuch as reducing greenhouse gas emissionsto overburdened areas, in
fact, is now required by Californias climate laws.
In the Appalachia region of the United States, which has a long history of extracting
energy from the land, the New World Foundation, Chorus Foundation, New York
Community Trust, Blue Moon Fund, and Energy Foundation have funded groups to
extend community organizing efforts into advocacy for cleaner energy, healthier
jobs, and regional economic opportunity.
National dialogues across philanthropic portfolios also are planned. The September
2015 Environmental Grantmakers Association retreat agenda includes discussion of
partnership opportunities between health and environmental grantmakers.
Conclusion
While climate change has long been the bailiwick of environmentalists, the impacts
of climate change are hitting every sector and every community. Grantmakers with
health as a funding priority are beginning to engage in preparedness, policy
analysis, and advocacy efforts and are elevating health protection, equity, and
healthy economic development in strategies to create a climate for health.