Funding Movements on the Ground to
Keep Fossil Fuels in the Ground.
We have 10 years to cut emissions in half yet the fossil fuel industry blocks progress every step of the way. The tide, however, is turning. People from all walks of life are leading the fight to prevent climate catastrophe, and to ensure economic and racial justice. It’s time we invest in their power.
What is The Equation Campaign?
The Equation Campaign is a new ten-year funding initiative working to bring about a safe and just future by enhancing the power of movements to keep oil and gas in the ground.
The science is irrefutable: to avert the worst effects of the climate crisis, carbon emissions must be cut in half by 2030. While supporting the rapid growth of renewables and energy efficiency is essential, this support cannot solve the climate problem alone. There is a missing piece of the equation: stopping oil and gas at the source.
Studies show we can’t even burn all the oil and gas currently under production without pushing our climate over the brink. But instead of working towards a managed transition, the oil and gas industry is pushing for $1.4 trillion dollars worth of new infrastructure in the next five years. This expansion must be stopped.
As a society, we know exactly how to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis: We have the data, the money, the technology and enough time to achieve a smooth transition if we begin to shift course right now. We have everything we need to transform our future, except for one thing: the power to make it happen. The potential for mass mobilization around climate is unprecedented, and so is the need. Our strategies support the transformational change required, in the time science demands.
We will keep it in the ground by funding movements on the ground. We center and amplify voices of people on the frontlines, for whom the expansion of the oil and gas industry is a matter of life and death. This includes young people fighting for their future, indigenous people defending their land and water, black and brown communities living in the shadow of the industry’s operations, and poor people who are not responsible for global warming but who bear the brunt of its effects. But the truth is that in the climate crisis, we are all on the frontline; none of us can escape the impacts of climate change. Together, we can avert the worst of it.
Our Strategy
The Equation Campaign is premised on the belief that we can keep it in the ground by funding movements on the ground — enabling historically underfunded grassroots groups to stand shoulder to shoulder alongside their peers in the national environmental community.
The fossil fuel industry has used its immense power, wealth and political influence to keep expanding its operations by selling the lie that we cannot live without their oil and gas. To counter this power, the climate movement needs to channel the kind of unstoppable momentum we have seen in social justice movements throughout history. Only this scale of mobilization can disrupt the industry’s continued obstruction of climate action.
We provide funding that supports two missing pieces of the equation in most climate philanthropy and activism to date: (1) supply side strategies to stop or delay new or expanded projects, and to directly target the power of the fossil fuel industry, and (2) racial justice movement strategies that center the expertise and power of the communities impacted first and worst by both the climate crisis and the impacts of oil and gas operations. Our goal is to amplify the voices of people on the frontlines, for whom the expansion of the oil and gas industry is a matter of life and death.
Grantees
Here are some of the grantees that The Equation Campaign is currently supporting:
Breach Collective
Breach Collective partners with communities on the front lines of the climate crisis to advance justice through locally-driven campaigns rooted in the power of grassroots organizing, legal advocacy, and human stories.
Alliance for Affordable Energy
Founded in 1985, the Alliance for Affordable Energy promotes equitable, affordable, environmentally responsible energy. From the start, they have advanced a philosophy that there is no conflict between lower energy costs and lower pollution, between good jobs and regulation, or between serving the public interest and making a reasonable profit. Because they are both a consumer advocate and public health advocacy organization, their policy work meets at the crossroads of social justice, sustainable economic development, and environmental protection.
Louisiana Bucket Brigade
The mission of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade is to collaborate with impacted communities and hasten the transition from fossil fuels. LABB works with communities that live near polluting facilities and are in what they call the “bullseye” of the oil and gas and petrochemical industry. Their collaboration with impacted communities in Louisiana has defined their work since their inception in 2000.
Healthy Gulf
Healthy Gulf’s purpose is to collaborate with and serve communities who love the Gulf of Mexico by providing the research, communications, and coalition-building tools needed to reverse the long pattern of over exploitation of the Gulf’s natural resources. Healthy Gulf organizes community-based resistance to petrochemical buildout in the Gulf, particularly in Louisiana and Texas.
Memphis Community Against the Pipeline
Memphis Community Against the Pipeline is a Black-led grassroots movement rooted in South Memphis, Tennessee that successfully fought and beat Valero Energy Corporation and Plains All American’s Byhalia Connection Pipeline, a proposed crude oil pipeline that would have cut through Southwest Memphis communities already burdened by decades of environmental injustice. They are now turning their focus on ending the legal loopholes that would allow Valero’s operations or a pipeline to come back into the area.
Climate Defense Project
Climate Defense Project fills a gap in the legal landscape by supporting front-line activists (including those on Line 3 and the Mountain Valley Pipeline), advancing innovative arguments, and connecting attorneys, experts, and community members. CDP’s three co-founders are graduates of Harvard Law School, where they brought the first fossil fuel divestment lawsuit, Harvard Climate Justice Coalition v. President and Fellows of Harvard College. Since graduating, they have continued to fight for a stable climate for present and future generations.
US Climate Action Network
US Climate Action (USCAN) is a coalition of over 200 environmental, labor, policy, and justice focused organizations committed to fighting climate change in a just and equitable way. USCAN launched Arm in Arm with the goal to build toward a massive decentralized escalated action through 2023 by cultivating organizing hubs across the country.
Contact
info@equationcampaign.org
Note: We do not review unsolicited proposals.