August 2019: A group of individuals have come together to launch The Climate Emergency Fund to avoid a worst-case scenario and restore a safe climate. The Fund will provide grants to climate activists to support their efforts in addressing the “climate emergency.”

The Climate Emergency Fund website states that the current climate emergency requires “large-scale disruption and nonviolent civil disobedience.” The Fund argues for a new paradigm that phases out fossil fuel infrastructure and phases in non-fossil energy sources and removes carbon from the atmosphere. To achieve this shift, the Fund argues that the disruption of everyday life and perceived normal reality “is necessary to create a conversation on the climate and ecological crisis” and force needed policy change.

The fund takes a non-violent, disruptive approach to the climate emergency.

The Climate Emergency Fund Board of Directors includes Trevor Neilson, Rory Kennedy and Sarah Ezzy. The Advisory Board includes Aileen Getty, Bill McKibben, David Wallace-Wells, Katie Eder and Margaret Klein Salamon. In a story on Medium, Neilson explained that the fund will “catalyze hundreds – if not thousands – of new climate activist groups.” He said the fund takes a “non-violent, disruptive approach” to the climate emergency.

The Climate Emergency Fund provides funding to individuals and organizations that demonstrate the “intention and capability of disrupting with urgency the inadequate and immoral gradual approach governments around the world are taking to address the climate emergency.” The Fund provides three levels of grants based on the entity’s size and maturity. Level 1 grants receive funding for printed materials, bullhorns and other supplies for grassroots climate activists. Level 2 organizational development funding grants are for groups that have grown beyond the start-up phase and are working to create a more sophisticated or permanent structure. Level 3 provides operational funding for climate activists whose organizations are mature and need support for office space, salaries, housing stipends, marketing and communications and other needs. [Climate Emergency Fund Website] [Medium News Story]