For decades, we had been cooling the planet by accident. It’s one of the stories in our new page on extreme climate risk. The page is about a part of climate change that gets surprisingly little attention: what are the things that we can do when climate change turns out to be much worse than we expect?

Most climate conversations happen in the middle of the forecast - the most likely scenarios. There’s some good news here: in expectation, the world will probably heat up less than we once thought it would. The IPCC recently dropped its most pessimistic scenario because the world is making progress on the energy transition. Things could still go worse in a few ways, though. Some sectors might be harder to decarbonise than we hope. The climate might react more strongly to our emissions, for example if thawing permafrost starts releasing its own carbon. Or a given amount of warming might do more damage than we’ve planned for. The Atlantic currents that carry heat around the planet (the “AMOC”, for insiders) are already weakening faster than scientists expected.

Very hot climate outcomes are unlikely, but sufficiently bad that we can’t ignore them. The economist Martin Weitzman argued that climate uncertainty is fat-tailed: the odds of very bad outcomes shrink slowly instead of dropping to zero. Damage also grows faster than temperature, so going from 3.9°C to 4.0°C hurts far more than going from 1.9°C to 2.0°C. Put the two together and the unlikely, severe scenarios end up accounting for a lot of the harm we should expect from climate change. Economists try to put a number on this with something called the social cost of carbon. One study found that once you include climate tipping points, like melting ice sheets or dying rainforests, that number goes up by about a quarter, or might even double. Taking these small risks seriously is the same logic as home insurance: you don’t expect your house to burn down, but you’d be unwise to plan as if it never could.

Despite its importance, very few people work on this. By one estimate, there are a only a few hundred researchers and advocates working on extreme climate risk worldwide, and fewer than a hundred in advocacy. For comparison, the world spends more than a trillion dollars on climate every year. Working on solutions for extreme risks was (and still is) a taboo for many environmentalists, who worry that even talking about sunlight reflection would ease the pressure to cut emissions. A second reason that the field is neglected is that humans are simply bad at worrying about things that are unlikely, far off and never seen before.

So what do those few hundred people working on stabilization and extreme risk actually do? A few examples:

• Researching ways to reflect sunlight, and ensuring proper governance. Spraying fine particles into the stratosphere could cool the whole planet within a year or two, just like large volcanic eruptions have. Brightening clouds over the ocean, as ships once did by accident, could cool a specific region or coral reef. Reflecting sunlight doesn’t fix climate change indefinitely, and there are some concerning side-effects (for example on monsoon rainfall). That’s why researchers want to understand them well before anyone is tempted to use them in a hurry.

• Watching for tipping points. Better monitoring and early-warning systems could tell us whether a collapse of the Atlantic currents is approaching while there’s still time to prepare. A few groups are even exploring whether vulnerable glaciers could be slowed down.

• Preparing for the worst cases. If several of the world’s main grain-growing regions failed in the same year because of climate disasters, how would we feed people?

Because so few people work in this space, we think that extra people can have an outsized impact. It needs climate scientists, economists, lawyers, policy specialists and founders. Many of the organisations on our list have only a handful of staff, and some important questions have nobody working on them at all.

If you’re curious, the full page covers the evidence, the debates (including the reasons for caution) and a list of organisations to look at.

Read the article

Other updates for the effective environmentalism community

Opportunities

• Become a grantmaker: Applications for Elevate Philanthropy’s Fieldshaper Program are open until October 30th. Over the course of a year, the Fieldshaper program develops you into a field-leading grantmaker. You'll steward $1,000,000 in grant capital, receive a $125,000 annual stipend, and deploy that capital within a sub-field of one of three key areas (farmed animals, global health, or philanthropic infrastructure); building the track record to become a grantmaker who can shape a field.

• Funding opportunity for wildlife technology research. The new Wildlife Technology Fund by Renaissance Philanthropy designs & runs scientific programs to solve problems facing, and caused by, wildlife.

• Help build an endurance sports community fundraising for impactful climate action. The World Climate Relay is a climate fundraising organisation raising money for high-impact climate charities recommended by Giving Green. They’re looking for Hub Leaders: ambitious, reliable people who want to build a World Climate Relay community in their own region from scratch.

• Find mentorship for an impactful career. Applications for Magnify Mentoring are now open. They would love to hear from you if you are a woman, non-binary, or trans person of any gender who is enthusiastic about pursuing a high-impact career using evidence-based approaches. The program is best suited for people who have specific goals in mind and can commit to meeting with their mentor monthly over the next 6 months. Apply by the 20th of October.

Some job opportunities:

• Research Scientist, Heat Forecasting at the Development Innovation Lab (New Delhi, India)

• Analytics Assistant (Junior Research Officer) at Opportunity Green (United Kingdom)

• Four different roles at Future Cleantech Architects, focused on HR, policy, operations, and technology.

• High Impact Professionals is looking for a Chief of Staff or Managing Director, Director of Operations, Program Launch Lead, and a Recruitment Manager.

What we’ve been reading and listening to

• Reasons why far-future civilizations may still greatly value biodiversity, Tandena Wagner on the EA Forum

• EarthEnergyImbalance.com, a new info website on the Earth getting darker, a frequently-ignored aspect of climate change.

💡Useful resources

We’ll include these in every newsletter.

• Read our career advice

• Find and donate to high-impact climate nonprofits

• Join our talent directory and find work

• Join our LinkedIn group and Slack community

I know this pull well myself. Five years ago I took a train to Sweden to work as a wetland conservation volunteer. We’d spend one or two days in a ditch to add ‘plugs’ to stop peatlands from draining. It was back-breaking work, but you could see the results of your work every day.1 Clearly we must be doing more important work than the monitoring and evaluation team who once showed up, said hi, measured a few things, drank coffee, and drove away?

Since then, I’ve grown to think that this instinct, however satisfying, quietly undersells a different kind of work. The kind of work that never plugs a wetland, advocates for policy change, or even tries to create an impact itself. I’m talking about what the nonprofit and philanthropy sector calls “meta” work.

Meta work is work that’s one step removed from impact. A meta organisation isn’t lobbying a government to fund climate science, won’t run a field experiment, or launch a petition. Rather, they build the infrastructure that lets the organizations doing these impactful things actually work: helping climate professionals find highly impactful work that fits their background, doing research which climate nonprofits are making the most progress on climate per dollar, and starting new nonprofits working on neglected gaps. Meta organisations aren’t at the frontlines of advocacy or innovation, but they help climate progress by making sure that people are working on the right problems and that money flows to where it can be used best.

The promise of meta organisations comes down to two main arguments:

1. It is very highly leveraged. A small but successful meta organisation can create and support entire fields of climate action by setting priorities, providing funding, incubating new organisations, and providing talent.

2. It is extremely neglected. The vast majority of people and dollars in climate are pointed at interventions, not meta. A small increase in resources for small fields usually goes a long way, because of the law of diminishing returns.

Of course, you can’t solve climate change by doing meta work alone. Meta work is only valuable if there are promising organisations working on the actual interventions. My argument is about the margin: I think a few additional resources or people in climate meta can go a long way.

Compared to other global challenges—climate is quite well resourced: there are millions of people working on climate, and climate finance is in the trillions of dollars per year. A straight-forward way to speed up climate action is to steer the allocation of resources to the most important, tractable, and neglected solutions—which is exactly what meta organisations do.

I like to compare ‘meta’ work in the non-profit/philanthropy space to the conductor of an orchestra. A conductor doesn’t make any music, but without a conductor the orchestra would sound a lot worse. Clearly, you can add a lot of value to an orchestra without playing yourself. By working in the ‘climate meta’ space, you can help other climate organisations and professionals perform their very best, the same way a conductor helps her orchestra put on a great performance.

Types of meta organisations

• Charity evaluators figure out which climate charities are the most promising to donate to. Some evaluators, like Giving Green, are looking for the charities where one extra dollar will make the biggest difference on reducing emissions.2

• Grantmakers fund nonprofits (and sometimes other organisations) with their own endowment or by re-granting people’s donations. Some effectiveness-oriented climate grantmakers are Founders Pledge’s Climate Fund, the Giving Green Fund, and the Navigation Fund.

• Effective giving organisations fundraise for nonprofits that have been vetted by charity evaluators or by themselves. Many effective giving organisations focus on a country or community, such as Doneer Effectief (Netherlands), Impactful Giving (India), and Effektiv Spenden (Germany). (Full list here.)

• Charity incubators, such as Ambitious Impact, launch new nonprofits where there should be one, but isn’t one.

• Philanthropic advisors help wealthy people make better donation decisions.

• Career advisors help talented professionals work on tackling the most promising climate challenges. That’s us (Effective Environmentalism Initiative), but also orgs like Probably Good and High Impact Professionals.

• Community builders make sure that people interested in the same topics talk, exchange ideas, and help each other thrive. (We run a Slack community for impact-focused climate professionals, by the way.)

Should you start meta-climate work?

Probably yes.

The meta space is tiny, most of the organisations I mentioned above have only a few full-time staff. My own organisation, the Effective Environmentalism Initiative, is a part-time project. Just one extra person can take the climate meta-space quite a bit further.

If you’re considering starting a new organisation in this field, or want to help effective environmentalism with career advising or community building, I’d love to hear from you to see where we can help each other.

If you’re interested in grantmaking or research two help improve the allocation of funding, these two articles by Probably Good might interest you:

• Prioritization Research as a High-Impact Career Path

• Grantmaking as a High-Impact Career Path

🗞️ Organisational updates

• Effective Environmentalism Durham just completed its first fellowship program, piloting a co-developed introduction course.

• Giving Green announced $5.4 million in grants for decarbonizing the power sector in the U.S. and India.

• Probably Good published an article about making a successful career change.

📰 What we’ve been reading and listening to

• Tackling the Existential Threat of Climate Change: Collective action to manage, mitigate, and reduce climate risk. An FP Analytics brief about strategies to address climate change by stabilizing feedback mechanisms and managing sunlight reflection.

• A post about climate stabilization on the EA Forum by Craig Segall making the case for dealing with extreme climate change as an important yet neglected cause.

• Experts: Why carbon removal needs a ‘major scale up’ to return warming to 1.5C. Cecilia Keating for CarbonBrief.

• The Case for a Comprehensive Meat Tax by Michael Goff on the EA Forum.

• The Absorption Problem by Nick Allardice. A historic amount of money may be about to flow toward the world's problems, but right now that money can’t be absorbed at the effectiveness and scale this moment demands.

👩‍💼 Opportunities

• Funding available ($10 million) for alternative protein policy advocacy and market shaping by the Nova Vista Foundation.

• The Loss and Damage Policy Institute (LDPI) is hiring for a Policy Advisor. LDPI ensures loss and damage finance delivers real benefits to people affected by climate change.

Find more opportunities on the Probably Good, 80,000 Hours, and EA Opportunities job boards.

💡Useful resources

We’ll include these in every newsletter.

• Read our career advice

• Find and donate to high-impact climate nonprofits

• Join our talent directory and find work

• Join our LinkedIn group and Slack community

Before you dive in, here are some promising opportunities and writing that might interest you:

• 📄 Write your thesis about improving climate action. We’ve collaborated with Effective Thesis to develop a list of promising research questions.

• 🤵 Probably Good has revamped its job board with curated high-impact jobs, including climate-related ones.

• 💰 Three articles by Founders Pledge explaining the rationale behind their first $20 million of grants in 2026:

  • Iran and the Energy Crisis—What Should Climate Philanthropists Do?

  • Why We’re Deploying $3M+ into European Climate Policy

  • Is U.S. Energy Innovation Advocacy Still Worth It?

• Giving Green announced its 2026 research and grantmaking priorities.

• 💨 Philanthropic Foundation Funding for Clean Air 2026: An analysis by the Clean Air Fund of funding from philanthropic foundations to tackle air pollution between 2019 and 2023.

• ✈️ Is progress on contrails avoidance limited more by the ability to avoid contrails or the motivation to actually do it? Seth Baum for GCRI

• ❗Applications for High Impact Professionals’ Impact Accelerator Program (IAP) close June 7th. The IAP is a free 6-week virtual program that helps experienced professionals transition into high-impact careers.

How Future Matters identifies climate policy priorities

In 1991, researchers asked participants how much they were willing to pay to prevent migrating birds from drowning in oil ponds. One group was told two thousand birds were at risk; another, 20,000; a third, 200,000. The answers came back: $80, $78, and $88. A hundred-fold difference in scope had almost no effect on how people responded.

Policy advocates make equivalent mistakes every day – just with much higher stakes. When deciding which policy to pursue, experienced advocates tend to anchor on what is trending in the news, what their peers are working on, or what their organisation has historically done. While you can hardly work 100x as hard or as effectively, your choice of policy objectives can very well make a 100-fold difference in how much impact you achieve.

How can you identify high-impact, underrated policy opportunities before they become obvious? Future Matters, a Berlin-based climate policy think tank, developed a method that draws on the importance-tractability-neglectedness framework and adapts it to the specific challenges of climate policy advocacy.

Why instinct fails

Three cognitive biases regularly distort advocacy priorities.

Scope insensitivity. As the bird study illustrates, our intuitions about scale are poor. We struggle to feel the difference between a policy that could prevent 50 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions and one that could prevent 500 million tonnes. Both feel like “big wins” – the numbers are too large to carry emotional weight. Only deliberate analysis can surface the difference.

Availability and recency bias. We overweight what is in the news and what colleagues are currently discussing. A piece of legislation attracting media coverage will draw advocates even when less-covered opportunities have far higher potential impact.

Groupthink on neglectedness. The more advocates are already working on a problem, the more it can seem like the right problem to work on. But a policy that twenty well-resourced organisations are already pushing hard on likely has less room for additional contribution.

These are well-known properties of how human minds process information under uncertainty. A systematic method is more reliable than intuition for decisions of this complexity.

Core criteria for policy prioritisation

If you already think in terms of importance, tractability, and neglectedness, the adaptation to policy advocacy involves a few important modifications. To evaluate which policy deserves your attention, assess it against five criteria – separately.

Impact potential. How much could this policy advance your goals globally, over the long term? The relevant question is not “is this good?” but “how much good could this realistically do?” A clean energy transition partnership between major economies may prevent hundreds of megatons of emissions; a domestic efficiency programme in a mid-sized country, perhaps a few.

Effort. What would it take to get this policy adopted? Account for the full scope of work – research, policy development, coalition-building, advocacy – from initial idea to successful adoption. Some policies are already well-researched and just need a champion to carry them into a few specific fora. Others require years of groundwork before advocacy can begin.

Feasibility. Given current political, economic, and social conditions, how likely is a serious push for this measure to succeed? Consider political opposition, windows of opportunity, institutional capacity, and whether conditions are ripe for change. A proposal with high impact potential is worthless if it has no path to adoption in a relevant timeframe. In practice, it helps to model feasibility separately at different stages of the policy process – proposal, committee, adoption, implementation – since the bottlenecks can be very different at each stage.

Neglectedness. How many other advocates are already working on this? The concept of counterfactual impact is essential here. If a policy is already being pushed effectively by well-resourced organisations, your additional effort substitutes for work that would happen anyway. An opportunity where your team could genuinely make the difference between success and failure is worth far more.

Fit with your skills. Do you have the specific expertise, political relationships, or institutional credibility this policy requires? Your comparative advantage is where you can contribute something others cannot easily replicate.

Evaluating policies on each of these criteria separately is what makes the method work. A policy requiring considerable effort may still be worthwhile if its impact is proportionally larger and few others are attempting it. A seemingly high-impact policy becomes much less attractive if it is already crowded with well-resourced advocates.

One important consideration alongside the positive criteria: complex policy systems can generate harms that are hard to foresee. Systematically consider how your proposed policy might be misused or create harmful side effects – especially when working on dual-use technologies or biosecurity.

A systematic process for comparison

Ranking multiple policy options across five dimensions simultaneously is precisely what human intuition handles badly. The following process structures the comparison so that the hard parts – scale differences and trade-offs between criteria – become visible.

Generate and eliminate. Brainstorm the policy options that could plausibly have high long-term impact on your goals. Conduct initial research on each, then eliminate obvious non-starters: negligible impact, insurmountable barriers, or already being pursued by virtually every major organisation in your field.

Rank under each criterion separately. For each criterion in turn, rank all remaining options from best to worst. Start by identifying which policy performs best and which performs worst, then arrange the others in between.

Score to capture relative differences. Rankings tell you which option is better, but not by how much – and the difference between “twice as good” and “ten times better” drives very different decisions. Give the top-ranked option under each criterion a score of 100, then rate all others relative to that anchor. This forces you to quantify differences your intuition would otherwise flatten.

Compare overall priority. The essential logic is multiplicative: impact, feasibility, neglectedness, and fit reinforce each other, while high effort reduces priority. Plotting each option with effort on one axis and combined impact on the other makes trade-offs visible at a glance.

The method in practice: EU-India green steel

In 2023, Future Matters applied this method to identify EU climate policy priorities for the incoming 2024–2029 mandate. One of those eight was an EU-India partnership on low-carbon steel production. India’s steel industry has the potential to lock in up to 125 Gt CO₂e of cumulative emissions by 2100 if it follows a conventional development pathway. Most European advocates were focused on India’s energy transition and coal exit; industrial decarbonisation was comparatively neglected. And 2025 offered a clear political window with the planned revision of the EU-India strategic partnership.

In January 2026, the EU and India agreed at their summit in New Delhi to cooperate on industrial decarbonisation in heavy industries, with green steel as a focus. Future Matters was one of several actors contributing to this outcome. What the method provided was an early signal that this opportunity was underweighted by most actors – and the confidence to commit resources before the policy window opened.

Carl Frederick Luthin is a Policy Manager in Climate Protection at Future Matters. Vegard Beyer is co-founder and Director of Partnerships & Communications at Future Matters. You can read the full method and case study in Future Matters’ original article, or explore the underlying research in 8 EU Policy Priorities for Global Decarbonisation.

💡Useful resources

We’ll include these in every newsletter.

• Read our career advice

• Find and donate to high-impact climate nonprofits

• Join our talent directory and find work

• Join our LinkedIn group and Slack community

[I was] motivated a lot by the effective altruist observation that almost no one is bothering to publicly compare very simple numbers involved in big global problems, and that those numbers do matter quite a bit and should be more action-guiding than they often are. - Andy Masley

So what is some high-impact “meta” work that still hasn’t been picked up?

• A clear customizable visualization of how any one activity compares to your total daily and annual emissions, to help you figure out what to cut.

• An 80,000 Hours-like comprehensive website trying to rigorously compare the actual impacts of different climate careers specifically. (We’re working a small version of this.)

• A simple prioritisation of where to donate for climate change adaptation.

• Using forecasting and data from prediction markets to estimate the cost-effectiveness of climate charities.

• Which interventions or strategies are most cost-effective for reducing the health burden of air pollution?

• Guidance for (academic) researchers to pick high-impact research topics.

Some of these idea’s are Andy’s; some are mine. This is by no means an exhaustive list.

Long story short: feel welcome to get involved!

Also in this this newsletter:

• Impactful Giving Strategies for Reducing Biodiversity Loss

• Mental Health Survey

• The first effective environmentalism university group has launched!

• Short news, events, and opportunities

This newsletter just hit 1000+ subscribers! We’re excited to see a growing interest in effective environmentalism. Do you have connections who would be interested in maximizing the impact of their climate action? Please forward this newsletter so they can get involved.

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Impactful Giving Strategies for Reducing Biodiversity Loss

What are the most promising ways in which donors can tackle biodiversity loss?

Giving Green—a climate change charity evaluator—has published its first strategy report on reducing biodiversity loss at the request of a donor.1

For biodiversity on land, Giving Green recommends donors to focus on reducing land use change from agricultural expansion, as this is the largest driver of terrestrial biodiversity loss. Donors can support organisations that:

1. Advocate for alternative protein policy and research, such as the Good Food Institute, to reduce the amount of farmland for grazing and animal feed.

2. Protect sensitive and unique habitats at scale, such as Wetlands International. Protecting these ecosystems could help conserve the most valuable habitats from conversion in the short term until land-use pressures are solved.

For marine biodiversity, Giving Green recommends working on bycatch reduction and innovation in fish feed.

Read more

On March 17th, Giving Green will host a webinar with leading experts in alternative proteins, wetlands, fish feed innovation, and bycatch reduction.

Sign up for the webinar

Mental Health Survey

Rethink Wellbeing is researching mental health in the effective altruism community. They’re running a survey to gather information about mental health and productivity across the community to better understand the range of experiences, challenges, and strengths among EA community members, and what resources and support would be most valuable.

This survey closes on March 15th.

Take the survey

🗞️ Short news

• An effective environmentalism group and fellowship just launched at Durham University (U.K.). Follow @du_effective_environmentalism on Instagram to stay in-the-loop.

• Devon Fritz, the co-founder of High Impact Professionals, is launching his book The High-Impact Professional’s Playbook: How To Turn Your Career, Income, and Influence into Doing Good. A must-read if you want to make a high positive impact with your career.

• Founders Pledge has published its 2025 Climate Fund Impact Report.

📅 Events

• High-Impact Giving Strategies for Reducing Biodiversity Loss (March 17th)

• How to Turn Your Climate Concern into High-Impact Action with The World Climate Relay. (April 8th)

• Upcoming effective altruism conferences in Mexico City, Nairobi, Jakarta, Stockholm, Washington D.C., and London.

• Join the World Climate Relay and raise funds for high-impact climate charities by running, biking, climbing, or swimming. (June 5th-12th)

📰 What we’ve been reading and listening to

• Climate change is speeding up — the pace nearly doubled in ten years. Earth is now warming at a rate of around 0.35 ºC per decade, fresh analysis finds. This is mainly because of a reduction in air pollution following the introduction of fuel regulations for international shipping (which has resulted in fewer pollutant particles that reflect sunlight into space and seed insulating clouds). (Alexandra Witze for Nature News)

• A two-part series on effective conservation by Rhett Ayers Butler:

  • Measuring what works in conservation

  • Precision conservation: the rise of place-specific strategies where protection works best

• Do subsidies make meat much cheaper? A little, but not much. Certainly not enough to make them cheaper than meat substitutes. (Hannah Ritchie)

• We could produce a lot of electricity on the land used for biofuels. About enough to meet current global electricity demand. (Hannah Ritchie)

• Reducing air pollution: Can markets succeed where regulation fails? (VoxDevTalk podcast.)

👩‍💼 Opportunities

• The Good Food Institute APAC is hiring a People & Culture Lead to help build and support a high-performing, mission-driven team working to transform the global food system through alternative proteins.

• GFI APAC is also hiring a Policy Specialist (South Korea) to play a key role in advancing policies that enable the growth of alternative proteins and the transition to a more sustainable global food system.

• Future Cleantech Architects is hiring an Impact and Development Officer (remote from Amsterdam)

Find more opportunities on the Probably Good, 80,000 Hours, and EA Opportunities job boards.

💡Useful resources

We’ll include these in every newsletter.

• Read our career advice

• Find and donate to high-impact climate nonprofits

• Join our talent directory and find work

• Join our LinkedIn group and Slack community

In this this newsletter:

• The climate problem of the food system

• Exciting opportunities to get involved

• Upcoming events

By the way, the Effective Environmentalism LinkedIn page has hit 1000+ followers. Be sure to follow us, too, to not miss out on important ideas and impact opportunities.

Scroll down 👇

🍽️ The climate problem of the food system

The food system is responsible for a big part of the climate problem. Roughly one-fifth of all emissions come from land, such as livestock and manure, agricultural soils, rice cultivation, crop burning, and deforestation. Crucially, any progress that we make on the energy transition hardly tackles this share of all emissions, because agricultural emissions hardly come from combustion of fossil fuels.

We might even be understating the climate problem of the food sector:

• Agriculture is the largest source of methane emissions, for example from cow burps and rice paddies. Methane is an incredibly potent greenhouse gas, especially in the short-term. But since we compare greenhouse gases over 100-year timeframes, we tend to downplay the more immediate risks from methane emissions.

• If we reduce the amount of land that we use for agriculture, we can reforest those lands and store more carbon there.

• In emissions accounting, we often conveniently subtract carbon storage on land from the emissions of agriculture, but those two processes have little to do with each other.

What can we do to tackle food systems emissions?

1. Advance a transition towards plant-rich diets. Nonprofits such as the Good Food Institute are working to advance the science behind plant-based and cultivated meat, which are responsible for much fewer emissions and need much less land. Alternative proteins have a similar potential to contribute to tackling climate change as electric vehicles, but receive about 10x less funding. We have a page on the effective environmentalism website about how you can start supporting the protein transition in your career.

2. Reduce cow burps with methane. Feed additives can reduce methane emissions from cows, but we also need more research in this area. You can read up on feed additives on Project Drawdown, or check out policy and research efforts by Spark Climate Solutions.

3. Probably much more. We can look into making agriculture more land-efficient, reduce methane from rotting food, protecting forests, reducing food waste, and many other interventions. We invite you to start researching which ones are exceptionally promising!

Interested in reading or doing more?

• Read our website article about the protein transition

• Find work in the alternative protein sector on AltProtein.Jobs

• Read up on methane emissions on Project Drawdown

• Explore Giving Green’s research on reducing food system emissions

• If you want to read something more technical, this paper explores overlooked climate impacts of food.

💭 How to maximize the impact of your climate change career

The Effective Environmentalism Initiative presented at the EAGx Amsterdam conference last month to guide people towards high-impact climate careers.

Missed the talk? Don’t worry, here’s our summary in four key points:

1️⃣ Don't rush it. Building a high-impact climate career is hard. It's worth it to take your time, challenge your assumptions, and test your fit for different options.

2️⃣ Find something big and neglected. Our intuitions about what problems are the biggest are often wrong. We worry a lot about our household waste because it's close to us. But we never think about industrial emissions because it's far away and often invisible. What is the biggest problem you could tackle that no-one is working on yet?

3️⃣ Find something that you're better at than the next-best person. If you don't pursue a role, would your impact still have happened? Often, the inconvenient answer is 'yes'. But if you're an expert in a certain niche, the answer is often 'no'. One easy way to make a big counterfactual impact is to bring an "effectiveness mindset" to a role where you can improve the allocation of scarce resources, such as grantmaking, policy, and research.

4️⃣ Get coaching. There is free support available to help you build a high-impact career. And the best thing is: it's all free.

Inspired? Read the full career guide on the effective environmentalism website:

Career advice

🗞️ Short news

• Devon Fritz, the co-founder of High Impact Professionals, is launching his book The High-Impact Professional’s Playbook: How To Turn Your Career, Income, and Influence into Doing Good. A must-read if you want to make a high positive impact with your career.

📅 Events

• We’re hosting a workshop in The Hague soon on maximizing the impact of your climate career. Do you live in or around “de hofstad”? Send us a message and we’ll send you the details.

• Upcoming effective altruism conferences in Manila, Brussels, San Francisco, Helsinki, and Hong Kong.

• Join the World Climate Relay and raise funds for high-impact climate charities by running, biking, climbing, or swimming. (June 5th-12th)

📰 What we’ve been reading and listening to

• Should the climate movement organise around extreme weather events? A discussion paper by Social Change Lab argues that extreme weather events offer a strategic opportunity to expand the climate movement’s base and win tangible policy victories.

• Why are solar panels and batteries from China so cheap? China has optimized its supply chain for these technologies.

• UK intelligence expects that the collapse of ecosystems can threaten national security.

• Why Isn’t EA at the Table When $121 Billion Gets Allocated to Biodiversity Every Year? (EA Forum post by David Goodman)

• How climate change could trap workers in agriculture. (on VoxDev)

👩‍💼 Opportunities

• Effective Thesis Fellowships (3 Months) — Devote your thesis to help a high-impact organization to create a meaningful, real-world impact. (Deadline: January 31st!)

• Impact Accelerator Program (6 weeks) — A free 6-week virtual program that helps experienced professionals transition into high-impact careers. (Deadline: February 22nd)

• Are you good at writing or outreach? Contact the team at World Climate Relay to help raise funds for high-impact climate charities.

💡Useful resources

We’ll include these in every newsletter.

• Read our career advice

• Find and donate to high-impact climate nonprofits

• Join our talent directory and find work

• Join our LinkedIn group and Slack community

Effective environmentalism is about making the largest possible contribution to tackling climate change and other environmental problems. That includes thinking about your career, but—for many in the movement—also donating to high-impact climate charities.

Climate charity evaluators save you from a big hassle: choosing charities. Evaluators find out out which climate non-profits will make the most progress on climate change for every dollar that they receive. The differences in impacts between charities can be multiple orders of magnitude, so choosing the right charity is important!

The two main climate change charity evaluators—Giving Green and Founders Pledge (FP)—have curated a list of top climate nonprofits that make exceptional progress in areas that are high in scale, relatively easy to address, and sorely overlooked by other organisations.1 We recommend following charity evaluators for your donations to ensure that your climate giving achieves maximum impact.

You can donate directly to the charities below, or let evaluators decide where your donations can make the biggest difference by donating directly to expert-led charitable funds:

Donate to the Giving Green Fund

Donate to the FP Climate Fund

Here are the top-ranked climate non-profits for Giving Season 2025:

The Clean Air Task Force (CATF) works to accelerate decarbonization by promoting policies and technologies across sectors such as zero‑carbon fuels, transportation, and super‑hot rock geothermal. Giving Green considers them a top nonprofit because of their strong track record in shaping impactful climate legislation and advancing low‑carbon technologies at both national and international levels. With additional funding, CATF would expand global advocacy, support emerging geothermal innovations, and push for stronger policy frameworks around zero‑carbon transport and fuels. Recommended by Founders Pledge and Giving Green.

Future Cleantech Architects (FCA) is a Germany‑based think tank focused on advancing early-stage clean technologies and policy innovation in hard‑to‑abate sectors like heavy industry, aviation, and firm renewable power. Giving Green ranks them highly due to their unique focus on underfunded innovation gaps and their growing influence in shaping EU climate policy. If given more resources, they would hire more technical experts to deepen their policy engagement, especially in industrial decarbonization and energy system transformation. Recommended by Founders Pledge and Giving Green.

The Good Food Institute (GFI) promotes plant‑based and cultivated meat alternatives as a strategy to reduce emissions from animal agriculture and transform the global food system. Giving Green recognizes them as a top nonprofit because of their cost‑effective approach in boosting R&D, supporting regulatory development, and scaling production of alternative proteins. Extra funding would enable GFI to expand international offices, issue more scientific grants, and increase policy efforts to unlock greater public investment in sustainable proteins. Recommended by Giving Green and the EcoResilience Initiative.

Opportunity Green is a UK nonprofit leveraging law, economics, and policy to fill global climate governance gaps, initially targeting aviation and shipping emissions. Giving Green includes them among top nonprofits due to their focus on under-addressed international sectors and their innovative use of legal tools and climate justice frameworks. Additional funding would allow them to build out new campaigns, forge stronger partnerships, and expand their efforts into other high-impact sectors like buildings, agriculture, and steel. Recommended by Giving Green.

Project InnerSpace is working to rapidly scale geothermal energy by mapping global subsurface resources (GeoMap), investing in early-stage ventures (GeoFund), and advocating for supportive policy. Giving Green selected them as one of the most impactful climate nonprofits because of their high potential to unlock zero‑carbon electricity and heat at scale. With increased financial support, they would accelerate global GeoMap development, grow the GeoFund, convene stakeholders, and support policy and startup incubation activities. Recommended by Giving Green.

DEPLOY/US works to build the neglected field of engaging conservative constituencies in the United States on climate and energy. Less than 1% of US climate philanthropy has supported organisations working on right-of-centre climate action, despite the necessity of engaging conservatives on this issue now that Republicans hold both chambers of congress and the presidency. Recommended by Founders Pledge.

Innovation Initiative (I2) is a vehicle of the Clean Economy Project that identifies and advances high-impact policy interventions to accelerate clean energy innovation in the United States. By targeting overlooked opportunities for systemic change - such as regulatory reforms and incentive structures that unlock cleaner markets - I2 helps shape the policies that drive large-scale emissions reductions. With additional funding, I2 can expand its policy research, coalition-building, and advocacy efforts to move promising ideas from concept to implementation. Recommended by Founders Pledge.

WePlanet is a global pro-science NGO advancing scalable, evidence-based solutions to the climate and biodiversity crises — often where traditional green groups resist change. Active in 18 countries, WePlanet has helped secure landmark policy wins for nuclear energy, gene editing, and alternative proteins, and is now also applying its proven advocacy model to emerging priorities such as geoengineering and clean cooking in Africa. Working alongside Nobel laureates, presidents, thought leaders, and hundreds of thousands of citizen supporters, WePlanet is building the data-driven environmental movement needed to replace the legacy NGOs and deliver impact at speed and scale. Recommended by Founders Pledge.

Repower CIC is a global non-profit initiative accelerating the clean repowering of coal-fired power plants (CFPPs) — replacing coal boilers with low-carbon energy sources while retaining existing infrastructure and jobs. If widely adopted, clean repowering could avert up to 200 gigatons of CO₂ emissions by 2070, while lowering the cost and improving the permitting prospects of new clean generation. With a focus on China, India, South Korea, and Indonesia, we target the regions where coal transition is both most urgent and impactful. Additional funding will allow us to deepen engagement with key decision makers and convert awareness into concrete repowering projects. Recommended by Founders Pledge.

(This list is in no particular order.)

Your donations can catalyze the next climate breakthroughs we need to make renewables work everywhere, transform food systems, and push fossil fuels off the grid. Thank you for your generous contributions to climate progress!

Donate to the Giving Green Fund

Donate to the FP Climate Fund

Some EA-aligned research organisations and grantmakers have now released some great reports to deal with this question, which we’ll highlight in today’s newsletter.

In this this newsletter:

• Making progress on climate change without political support for climate action

• Updated charity recommendations

• A big list of relevant ideas and writing

• Updates to the EffectiveEnvironmentalism.org website

• We’re hiring a social media volunteer

Scroll down 👇

🏛️ Climate progress in today’s politics

In the early 2020s, the momentum for climate action had never been stronger. Greta Thunberg and the youth climate movement sparked a wave of climate action. The European Parliament just adopted the Green Deal. In the U.S., the Inflation Reduction Act promised massive spending on climate change. But in 2025, little of that initial momentum still remains. How can we make progress that don’t depend on politicians’ support for climate action?

Founders Pledge, an EA-aligned grantmaker and research organisation, just published its report Robust to Risk: Building a Climate Giving Portfolio for a Turbulent 2026 and Beyond. Founders Pledge argues that the climate community was not prepared to fund right-leaning climate organisations, mistakenly opposed permitting reform, and overestimated support for climate policy. According to Founders Pledge, the effectiveness-oriented climate movement must now focus on:

• In the US: Permitting reform to accelerate the rollout of renewables, supporting clean firm power like geothermal and nuclear, and supporting energy innovation.

• In Europe: Supporting existing legislation on energy and climate, and influencing the world’s largest climate budget.

• Expanding action elsewhere, such as China, the rest of Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Read 'Robust to Risk'

Giving Green,1 a climate charity evaluator and grantmaker, released its report Unleashing Clean Energy in the U.S. where it highlights the opportunity for bipartisan support for decarbonization by not framing legislation as “pro-Climate” but as removing barriers to construction, low-domestic energy, and reviving US industry. Giving Green recommends donors to focus on commercializing and deploying clean firm power and addressing clean energy deployment barriers.

Read 'Unleashing Clean Energy'

📅 Events

• 2 December 2025: Giving Green webinar: Unleashing Clean Energy in the U.S. with High-Impact Donations

• 5-7 December 2025: Effective Altruism Connect

• 12-14 December 2025: EAGx Amsterdam, including a presentation about effective environmentalism. (Applications close 23 November.)

• Other effective altruism conferences

🔔 Short news

• The effective environmentalism Slack community now has 100+ members. Come join the Slack community and exchange ideas about effective climate progress.

• New website articles: We’ve given our website a fresh make-over and have published articles about the most impactful lifestyle changes, the protein transition, carbon lock-in, and clean firm power. Including practical advice about how to get involved in climate action.

• Updated climate charity recommendations: Giving Green has updated its list of Top Climate Nonprofits. Its five recommend nonprofits are: Clean Air Task Force, Future Cleantech Architects, the Good Food Institute, Opportunity Green, and Project Innerspace.

• First biodiversity charity recommendation: the EcoResilience Initiative—a research group focused on long-termist biodiversity solutions—recommends advancing precision fermentation as the highest-impact biodiversity intervention, and recommends donating to the Good Food Institute.

• Project Drawdown now includes climate solutions that have potential, but aren’t yet available for implementation.

• Action guide for mountain leaders: Mieux Donner has released an EA-inspired Climate Action Map for mountains guides to show groups what they can do to tackle climate change.

• The Global Energy Innovation Index, released this month, measures the contributions of thirty-nine nations to the global process of improving energy technologies.

• Grant transparency: Meta Charity Funders highlighted the Effective Environmentalism Initiative’s spring grant on the EA forum.

📰 What we’ve been reading and listening to

• Narrative Framing Analysis: Exploring tools for Effective Advocacy. A method to identify and track narrative framings across media and government to support advocacy organizations with impact monitoring. (Hubert Thieriot)

• The overall cost-effectiveness of an intervention often matters less than the counterfactual use of its funding. When evaluating the impact of charity, how the charity’s donors would have otherwise spent their money might often be more important than the impact of the intervention itself. (Abraham Rowe)

• Eliminating contrails from flying could be incredibly cheap. Could we halve aviation’s climate impact at a fraction of the cost of sustainable aviation fuels? (Hannah Ritchie)

• What My Students Taught Me About Climate Action. Improving offsetting by paying for good things to happen to the planet and animals.

• Can advance market commitments jumpstart climate’s hardest sectors? Episode on the Volts podcast about how advance market commitments can commercialize new climate tech. (David Roberts, Clay Dumas)

• Building an Impact-focused Community. How to create and maintain a community focused on change.

• Supermarkets Are the Next Big Challenge for Meat Reduction. We buy so much meat at grocery stores, so it’s crucial to figure out how to lower animal product consumption in retail. (Björn Jóhann Ólafsson)

• Global renewable energy generation surpasses coal for first time. (The Guardian)

Several articles about making progress on biodiversity:

• Biodiversity Philanthropy Must Look Far From Home. To maximize impact during the sixth mass extinction, giving must focus on “where”. (Ben Valentine)

• Two-thirds of agricultural carbon and biodiversity loss occurs on one-third of the agricultural area. (Liu et al., preprint)

• Food impacts on species extinction risks can vary by three orders of magnitude. Animal products and commodities grown in the tropics generally have much negative impacts than staple crops and vegetables. (Ball et al., Nature Food)

👩‍💼 Job openings

We’re looking for a Social Media Volunteer to help grow the effective environmentalism movement and increase the visibility of the Effective Environmentalism Initiative. Read more here.

Apply

You can find more high-impact climate job opportunities on Probably Good.

💡Useful resources

We’ll include these in every newsletter.

• Read our career advice

• Find and donate to high-impact climate nonprofits

• Join our talent directory and find work

• Join our LinkedIn group and Slack community

• Join us on Slack: We’ve launched a Slack community for the effective environmentalism community to network and exchange ideas. You’re invited to join us!

• Start a charity: Ambitious Impact is still recruiting for their Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program. They’re looking for people who want to launch a charity for climate change co-benefits or to increase the impact of philanthropy.

Join the effective environmentalism community on Slack

We’ve created a Slack workspace for the effective environmentalism community. This is mean as a place to find and help each other, to discuss climate action strategies, and to exchange viewpoints, news, updates, and opportunities. We welcome anyone to join regardless of their experience with the ideas of effective environmentalism. We’re 60 members and counting. Join us!

Join the Slack community

It only takes a minute to sign up. Feel free to forward the link to your connections interested in effective altruism, climate change, and the environment.

Opportunity: Start a charity working on climate change or impactful philanthropy

Ambitious Impact is still recruiting people for their Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program. This is a two-month, cost-covered training program that gives a small cohort of talented people from all over the world everything they need to launch a field-leading charity: training, an intervention idea, co-founder matching, seed funding, and a collaborative community.

In our previous newsletter, we explained why starting a charity is one of the most impactful career paths that you can take. Importantly, you don’t need to have prior experience with working for a charity to start one. That’s what this program is for.

You can apply for these rounds:

• Climate, Animals, Health, and Development. Ideas include supermarket commitments for plant-based food, scale-up funding for alternative proteins, air pollution data and policy, and coal-fired brick kiln improvements.

• Impactful Philanthropy. A special edition of the incubation program focusing on opportunities for new charities to make impactful changes within the philanthropic sector. This could include areas like funder education, grantmaking training, advisory services, new funds, or innovative events and networks.

• Global Health & Well-being. Ideas relate to disability and family planning, details TBA.

Apply before October 5

PS. Ambitious Impact is also hiring for a Recruitment Manager and two Research Managers.

🗓 Events

Here are some upcoming events you might be interested in attending:

• Upcoming effective altruism conferences in New York City (applications close 28 September), Cape Town, Istanbul, Bogotá, Singapore, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Amsterdam, and New Delhi. (Our team will be at the Amsterdam conference; see you there?)

• We’re hosting an effective environmentalism co-working session on 16 October in Amsterdam. Feel free to join if you’re working for high-impact climate charities, are improving the effectiveness of environmental NGOs, or are otherwise working on high-impact systems change.

📰 What we’ve been reading and listening to

• For the climate, little things don’t add up: We need to think seriously about collective action. Tiny things on an individual level don’t add up to huge things on a global level, they stay the same tiny proportion globally as they are individually. We need to start thinking about the big things that do add up. (Andy Masley)

• Three simple reasons why Founders Pledge thinks pro-nuclear climate philanthropy should (at least) triple.

  • 1. Nuclear power is—despite its potential—neglected by climate donors.

  • 2. There are more opportunities to work on now that there is some momentum for nuclear.

  • 3. Supporting nuclear is a promising hedge against traditional climate progress stalling.

• Animal products and commodities grown in the tropics have the largest impacts on species extinction, with most total impacts from high-income countries driven by beef consumption. (Ball et al., Nature Food)

• Which countries are scaling solar and wind the fastest? The leaderboard is quite different depending on what metric you look at. China is—by far—adding the most capacity in absolute numbers, but countries in Western Europe and the Baltics are increasing the share of electricity generation coming from solar and wind the fastest.

• Funding opportunity: Rodent fertility control as solution for both animal welfare and conservation. (Nitin Sekar on the EA Forum)

🔔 Short news

• Hannah Ritchie’s book Clearing the Air is now out in the United Kingdom. It answers 50 common questions about climate using by taking a look at the data, from the author of Not the End of the World.

• Giving Green has announced its priorities for research and grantmaking for climate change mitigation in 2025.

Useful resources

We’ll include these in every newsletter.

• Read our career advice

• Find high-impact climate nonprofits

• Join our talent directory and find work

• Join our LinkedIn group and Slack community

Our partner Ambitious Impact (AIM) is now looking for people to join their Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program. This is a 2-month cost-covered program designed to prepare you to found a high-impact charity. You’ll be matched with a like-minded co-founder and a rigorously researched cost-effective charity idea. AIM has track record of launching more than 50 charities, including ones supported by the biggest funders and rigorous charity evaluators.

Their next incubation round includes many ideas related to climate change and pollution. If you’re passionate about the environment, aspire to lead, think evidence-first, strive for excellence, dream big, and can stay flexible, you should consider applying to start a charity!

Key Details:
🗓️ Program Dates: February 9 – April 5th, 2026
📍 Location: Hybrid (online + 2 in-person weeks in London)
⏰ Application Deadline: September 21, 2026

How does it work?

1. AIM helps you find a high-impact charity idea. Their research team looks for cost-effective and evidence-based solutions.

2. Attend a 2-month intensive training to learn the necessary skills.

3. You are matched with a talented co-founder.

4. Pitch for funding from the seed funding network. On average, organisations receive £100,000 in seed funding.

5. Receive continuous support.

List of (climate and environment) charity ideas that you can start

• 💨 An air quality monitoring & transparency meta-charity. Strengthen global air quality monitoring infrastructure by supporting local groups with a range of targeted services.

• 🧱 Training to improve the energy efficiency of brick kilns. Training owners and operators of brick kilns in South Asia in the best operational practices, thus reducing the kilns’ particulate and greenhouse gas emissions.

• 🏦 Boosting access to asset-collateralized loans for small-scale farms. Increasing access to finance for smallholder milk farmers to purchase water tanks.1

• 🛒 Working with large food retailers to achieve plant-based protein sale commitments. Advocate for protein sales ratio commitments by a target year using corporate campaigns and providing technical assistance.

• 💲 Securing scale-up funding for the alternative protein industry. Advocate for access to financing deals for this industry.

• 💦 Targeted water, sanitation, and hygiene mobile health interventions.

• 🐓 Cage-free farming in the Middle East.

• 🐔 Reducing keel bone fractures in cage-free layer hens.

What’s next?

• If you’re interested, read more about the programme on the AIM website.

• Join one of the upcoming webinars to learn more about the programme, the charity ideas, and what life is like as a charity founder.

• Forward this opportunity to others!

Start a climate charity!

Help create better climate policy in the EU

Join the Global Policy Research Group for this policy workshop to make submissions to the European Climate Resilience and Risk Management Consultation.2

GPRG coordinates and supports expert and community submissions to high-impact public consultations. For this integral consultation these workshops will be designed to support individuals—by providing expert guidance—to actively concretely contribute to the future of EU climate resilience policy.

Join the GPRG online to learn more about how you can have your say in shaping the future of climate resilience and risk in the EU. GPRG is here to support you in making an expert submission—don't miss the chance to make your voice heard.

Register for one of the online workshops below:

• September 3rd, 6pm (CET)

• September 4th, 10am (CET)

📰 What we’ve been reading and listening to

• What Does the One Big Beautiful Bill Really Mean for the Climate? The OBBBA’s immediate emissions effects are dominating headlines—but the potential for driving positive global progress remains enormous. (Johannes Ackva and Hannah Yang, Founders Pledge)

• Making Your Climate Dollars Count When Government Won't. Podcast with Giving Green’s founder Daniel Stein about steering every donated dollar toward the highest impact climate donations, even when US federal support is gutted.3

• No, growing more food does not mean we always need more and more inputs. Lower-income countries do, but many high and middle-income countries have reduced fertilisers, pesticides, labour, and in some cases land, without reducing food production. (Hannah Ritchie, Sustainability by numbers)

• Meat Taxes Are Super Risky. Maybe We Can Make Them Work. Hiking up the price of meat can lead to more animals being farmed. (Björn Olafsson, More Than Meats The Eye).

• How to Reduce Carbon Footprint: Simple Steps Everyone Can Take. Personal donations form the biggest lever that individuals have on the climate, and should be a top priority for climate-conscious individuals. Why? The short answer is “systemic change”.

🔔 Short news

• WePlanet has launched a campaign (“Just Stop Cooking!”) against climate finance rules making it impossible to fund LPG cooking solutions in the Global South, which causes nearly a million deaths per year.

• Countries can be held legally accountable for their greenhouse gas emissions, according to a landmark opinion by the International Court of Justice.

🚀 We’re looking for people to help us pilot a Slack community

We’re looking for a few people working on high-impact climate work to help us pilot an effective environmentalism Slack community, which we’ll launch soon.

If you are:

• Working on high-impact work in climate and environment

• Love the effective environmentalism community

• Would love to see an online community platform…

Please get in touch! We would love to have your input to better understand community needs. And we’re looking for some early adopters to make this community vibrant and relevant!

👩‍💼 Job openings

We are highlighting some outstanding opportunities to make a positive difference with your careers. These positions are vetted by Effective Environmentalism and not sponsored.

• Start a climate or air pollution charity in the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program!

• Applications for Last Energy’s Fellowship are now open! This fellowship is designed for promising, early-career professionals who seek firsthand experience with international energy markets.

Find more high-impact job opportunities on Probably Good.

You can find more impactful environmental job openings at 80,000 Hours, or find careers specific to developing alternative proteins here.

Useful resources

• Read our career advice

• Join our talent directory and find work

• Donate to effective charities

• Join our LinkedIn group

An update from us

We’re excited to announce that we’ve received funding from Meta Charity Funders! This means that we now have 0.4 FTE to work on growing effective environmentalism.

We’re making our initiative more formal: while effective environmentalism will remain the name of the movement, we’re re-naming our field-building project to The Effective Environmentalism Initiative—a very descriptive name. We’re now officially part of Effective Altruism Netherlands, a registered charity (ANBI) in the Netherlands. We’re very grateful for their operational support!

But before you dive in, consider sharing this newsletter with your connections working on climate change, the environment, and EA. If you enjoy reading this, so might they!

Share Effective Environmentalism

Some of our highlights of last month include:

• 🌦 Better weather forecasts with AI can improve the conditions of hundreds of millions of farmers in low and middle-income countries for only a small cost. (See below.)

• 💀 The end of lead: We have come a long way to end lead pollution in the developed world, and doing the same in the rest of the world might not be difficult (published in Works in Progress).

• ☢ The bad science behind expensive nuclear: a scientifically weak model is driving nuclear energy to be unreasonably expensive (also published in Works in Progress).

• ♨ How geothermal energy works, and why we don’t use it more. Despite being a huge energy source, it only provides 0.3% of the world’s electricity. The potential is big, but its growth is hampered by long payback times, regulatory approval procedures, and weak government support. (Hannah Ritchie, Sustainability by Numbers)

• 🇪🇺 Accelerating clean power in Europe through planning and contracting mechanisms; a new report by the Clean Air Task Force.

And below are some of our favourite opportunities. If you’re not applying yourself, please forward these to connections who might be interested!

• 👩‍💼 Ambitious Impact and The School for Moral Ambition are recruiting participants for their Founding to Give program: launch a high-growth company to donate to high-impact charities. You don’t need a team or an idea to join, and they don’t take equity.

• 💸 Ambitious Impact is also open for expressions of interest for their grantmaking program: a 7-week training course to equip philanthropists with the skills they need to set up their giving for maximum impact.
  (We can especially endorse this opportunity, because we just received funding from one of their funding circles! 🎉)

How AI-supported weather forecasts can enable climate adaptation

In effective environmentalism, we often talk about the most effective ways to stop global warming. In the long-term, reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases is simply the most straight-forward and effective way to reduce climate damages. At the same time, we need to adapt to reduce the near-term damage from climate change.1

Last weekend I was at EAG London: a global get-together of people using evidence and careful reasoning to make the world a better place, cost-effectively. One talk that sparked my interest was Michael Kremer’s talk on Innovation, economics, and effective altruism. Don’t let the title fool you, because prof. Kremer spent his full hour talking about nothing other than weather forecasting. I can’t blame him: I agree that AI-enabled weather forecasting will be one of the biggest assets in successful climate adaptation. Let me explain why:

• Small-scale farmers are among the most vulnerable people to climate change.
  There are more than a billion people in smallholder farming families.2
  They produce more than 30% of the world’s food.

• About 1 in 10 people face hunger, in part because of climate change.

• Climate change is making the weather less predictable and more severe. For farmers, it’s crucial to know when the rainy season starts and ends.

• Artificial intelligence has become very good at forecasting the weather. AI models require much less computational power and often lead to better results. Google’s new weather forecasting model, released late last year, was almost always better at regular forecasts and predicting extreme weather than the previous best model.

• Smallholder farmers would benefit from increased access to timely, relevant, and accurate weather forecasts, as confirmed by empirical studies. Farmer incomes rise significantly because of better yields.

• Predicting the weather is really cheap, and so is sending simple customised SMS or push messages to farmers. One study even estimated a 100-to-1 benefit-to-cost ratio.

A recent initiative, AIM for Scale, is a global collaboration focused on generating and disseminating weather forecasts to the millions of farmers that need them in low and middle-income countries. If you want to become just as excited about their work as I am, check out their work. Or watch prof. Kremer’s talk yourself:

📚 In other news

Organisational updates

• 🍖 Rethink Priorities has released a database of sources investigating interventions to reduce meat and animal product consumption.

• 🦋 Giving Green has started researching cost-effective strategies for biodiversity conservation.3

• 🧭 The Navigation Fund has announced 9 awards for impactful projects run by departing federal public servants in the US.

News articles

• 🦘 How to get the best bang for your climate buck. (The Age)

• 🧊 Mirrors in space and underwater curtains: can technology buy us enough time to save the Arctic ice caps? (The Guardian)

• 🐧 The first cultivated meat product (quail) has been approved in Australia. (FoodNavigator)4

• 🇨🇳 China’s CO₂ emissions have started falling — is this finally the peak? (NewScientist).

• 🏛 The ‘eco-right’ is growing: a small number of conservative climate groups know how to sell renewable energy to conservative lawmakers. (Chronicle of Philanthropy)

EA forum posts

• ⚖ Should EAs pay more attention to Climate Tipping Points? AMOC Collapse as a Case Study. (Rebecca Frank)

• 📔 Summary of John Halstead's Book-Length Report on Existential Risks From Climate Change. (Bentham’s Bulldog)

Some links we’ll always keep sharing

• 💻 Our website: more info about effective environmental action.

• ♥ The world’s most effective climate charities

• Career resources:

  • 📑 Our climate career guide

  • 👩‍💼 Impactful climate job openings, vetted by Probably Good

  • 👩‍💼 Impactful climate job openings, vetted by 80,000 Hours

  • 🖊 Add yourself to our talent directory

• Follow us on LinkedIn and Bluesky.

• Join the LinkedIn group

• Suggest content for this newsletter

Share Effective Environmentalism

Find us on Bluesky and LinkedIn. We also have a LinkedIn group.

In this newsletter:

1. We’ve published a new career guide with nine helpful tips for building a high-impact career

2. Give your input on effective biodiversity interventions

3. What we’ve been reading and listening to

4. Job openings and opportunities

👩‍💼 Our new career guide is now available

We’ve published a career guide to help you navigate your decisions for finding a high-impact climate career.

You’ll spend about 80,000 hours at work. Finding a career that allows you to meaningfully contribute to tackling global challenges is the most important action you can take to leave behind a better world.

We invite you to take some time to think critically about how you can use your skills and time to make a difference in the world. This does not only help you to achieve a far greater positive impact—it could leave you feeling more motivated, energized, and inspired at work. Doing meaningful work can be a rewarding experience.

But don’t decide on your career to quickly. “Follow your passion” can be bad career advice. It’s good to take your time to think about solutions that work at scale and are neglected by other people.

Read our career guide

🧠 Apply for the CBT Lab

Rethink Wellbeing is offering an exciting, fully-funded opportunity that could make a real difference for your community’s collective impact: the CBT Lab - at no cost to EA community members.

In 2024, participants in the CBT Lab reported significant improvements in productivity and mental health as large as those found in effectiveness studies on 1:1 psychotherapy. On average, participants gained 6–8 additional working hours per week. Organizations like Rethink Priorities, Charity Entrepreneurship, and 80,000 Hours have already benefited from our program.

Apply as soon as you can, as the final groups launch in mid-June. Luckily, the application form takes just 10 minutes to complete! Learn more about the program here.

Apply for the CBT Lab

🦋 Give your input on effective biodiversity interventions

The EcoResilience Initiative is looking for domain experts to inform their assessment method of which biodiversity interventions are most effective. Specifically, they are looking to talk to biodiversity experts, program coordinators, implementation experts, and systems thinkers. They’re hosting a workshop to understand what factors most often lead to success or failure of biodiversity interventions. By the end of this workshop, participants will have identified and prioritized what program factors and knowledge gaps are required to create a biodiversity assessment framework.

📅 Online 11am - 2pm UTC on Sunday 29th of June.

To join this workshop, send an email to EcoResilienceInitiative@gmail.com with your contact information and optionally a sentence about your background. The deadline for sign-ups is June 22nd.

Sign-up for this workshop

📚 What we’ve been reading and listening to

New resources

• Effective Environmentalism’s updated career guide

• How To Get A Job, a great resource with practical advice by Probably Good

• Systems Change Lab is now tracking the shifts and indicators for transforming food and agriculture by 2050.

Interesting articles

• “Cool” years are now hotter than the “warm” years of the past: tracking global temperatures through El Niño and La Niña, by Hannah Ritchie from Our World in Data

• Better air purifiers, by Jeff Kaufman on the EA Forum

• The promise of an Advance Market Commitment to tackle methane from livestock, Market Shaping Blog, University of Chicago

• When does charity effectiveness matter to donors? The role of ratings and expectations about cost-effectiveness, by Janek Kretschmer et al. (working paper)

• The bad science behind expensive nuclear by Alex Chalmers for Works in Progress

• Giving Green’s impact report and 2025 plans are here!

• The Good, the Bad, and the Effectual, Olav Bjerke Soldal. The theory and systems thinking that take us from cost-efficient to cause-effective measures for long-term risks, such as the spread of malaria.

• How to make heat pumps a financial no-brainer (Ravi Gurumurthy)

• And lastly, this video about the meatless meat of the future on SciShow.

News

• The Philanthropy Stepping in to Fund Center-Right Climate Groups, on the work of the Founders Pledge Climate Team over the past five years, reported by Heatmap

• DOE cancels $3.7B in carbon capture, decarbonization awards, as reported by Utility Dive

• Renaissance Philanthropy has launched a program on Advanced Research for Climate Emergencies

• Microsoft and Sublime Systems sign deal to scale clean cement, Carbon Herald

• Allseas will power their vessels with nuclear energy, Offshore Energy

👩‍💼 Job openings and opportunities

We are highlighting some outstanding opportunities to make a positive difference with your careers. These positions are vetted by Effective Environmentalism and 80,000 Hours and are not sponsored.

📤 Even if your dream job is not on this list, consider sharing these opportunities in your network or forward the job description to someone who would be interested.

Worldwide

• Register your interest for the High Impact Professionals Impact Accelerator Program, which helps experienced professionals achieve real-world impact through evidence-based tools and community support.

• AIM is looking for participants in its Founding to Give program. Launch a high-growth company to donate to high-impact charities.

Europe

• Climate View is looking for a Climate Strategy Advisor

• CATF is hiring a Junior Consultant Carbon Capture

• Future Cleantech Architects is hiring for a Cleantech Policy Officer and a Student Assistant Data Management and Operations

• Good Food Institute Europe is hiring a Research Analyst

Upcoming events

• 6-8 June: EA Global: London 2025, UK (Come find us!)

• 11 June: Profit For Good Conference, hosted by School for Moral Ambition, NL

Public consultations

• EU consultation on industrial decarbonisation

Share Effective Environmentalism

As always, a reminder that you can find more resources on our website. You can find us on Bluesky and LinkedIn. If you want to discuss effective environmentalism and share insights or vacancies, join our LinkedIn group.

First, a curated list of opportunities to get involved with effective climate action:

• The Kickstarting for Good incubation program is looking for people with bold ideas to change the food system, or ambitious entrepreneurs willing to take on vetted ideas! Selected applications will join a 15-week funded incubation program in Berlin. A total of $200,000 in seed funding is available.
  (Deadline: 23 May)

• Rutger Bregman’s School for Moral Ambition is hiring for their Moral Ambition Fellowships. In small groups of talented individuals, you’ll take on sizable, solvable, and sorely overlooked problems, such as the food transition.
  (⏰ Deadline approaching: 12 May. EU and USA)

• Join a tournament on climate tipping points with Metaculus and the Federation of American Scientists.

• The New Roots Institute is hiring for several roles.

• More opportunities on the 80,000 Hours job board, the Probably Good job board, the EA opportunity board, and maybe in this massive list of (not per se effective) resources.

🗣 Add yourself to the EE Talent Directory!

Join our Talent Directory and get approached by high-impact organisations looking for new staff, volunteers, or board members.

We’ve collaborated with High Impact Professionals (HIP) to build a repository of talented professionals motivated to make a substantial contribution to environmental progress. High Impact Professionals is a not-for-profit organisation whose mission is to enable working professionals to maximise their positive impact.

Impact-oriented organisations can use the talent directory to recruit new staff and share opportunities. Joining and using the Effective Environmentalism Talent Directory is completely free of charge for both job-seekers and impact-oriented organisations.

Register for the talent directory

📰 News

• Rutger Bregman’s newly released book Moral Ambition urges people to leave their pointless or even harmful jobs and build a career dedicated to the best solutions to the world’s biggest problems. As seen on The Daily Show. (Deadline for fellowships on May 12th!)

• Our co-director Ruben Dieleman hosted a session at EAGx Nordics about what the climate movement can learn from effective altruism, and vice versa.

• The European Commission is running a public consultation on industrial decarbonisation.

  

📚 What we’ve been reading and listening to

• Why you can justify almost anything using historical social movements. There’s always a casy study to justify your beliefs about how social change happens. (James Özden)

• Cultivating doubt: why I no longer believe cultivated meat is the answer. Will cultivated meat replace conventional meat, or instead compete with plant-based meat? (Tom Bry-Chevalier)

• Why household name NGOs are unlikely to offer the best value for money. (Happier Lives Institute)

• “Cool” years are now hotter than the “warm” years of the past: tracking global temperatures through El Niño and La Niña. (Veronika Samborska & Hannah Ritchie, Our World in Data)

📆 Upcoming events

• 10% Club Eindhoven: Accelerate Climate Innovations. How can you best help accelerate the innovations we need? (27 May, Eindhoven NL)

EA conferences

• EA Global: London (6-8 June)

  • If you’ll be in London around that time, reach out to our team to have a coffee!

• EAGx Nigeria (11-13 July)

• EA Summit: Paris (13 September)

💶 Effective Environmentalism is looking for funding

Effective Environmentalism is currently a volunteer-run initiative. We would like to scale up our activities to more effectively grow a global community of people and organisations tackling environmental issues as effectively as possible.

If you are a donor or work for a grant-making organisation, please get in touch!

In this newsletter:

1. Add yourself to the EE Talent Directory

2. Community spotlight: DVF’s Rune-Christoffer Dragsdahl

3. Exciting news about Effective Environmentalism

4. What we’ve been reading and listening to

5. Job openings and opportunities

6. We’re looking for funding

   ---

🗣 Add yourself to the EE Talent Directory!

Join the Talent Directory and get approached by high-impact organisations looking for new staff, volunteers, or board members.

We’ve collaborated with High Impact Professionals (HIP) to build a repository of talented professionals motivated to make a substantial contribution to environmental progress. High Impact Professionals is a not-for-profit organisation whose mission is to enable working professionals to maximize their positive impact.

Impact-oriented organisations can use the talent directory to recruit new staff and share opportunities. Joining and using the Effective Environmentalism Talent Directory is completely free of charge for both job-seekers and impact-oriented organisations.

Sign up for the Talent Directory

Want to start using the Talent Directory and find an impactful career in climate action? Follow these steps!

1. Register for the Talent Directory.

2. Choose a privacy option.

3. Get notified of high-impact opportunities.

4. Apply to opportunities you find interesting.

5. Keep your profile updated.

For the full picture and more information, check out our website!

🏔 Community spotlight: Rune-Christoffer Dragsdahl

Rune-Christoffer Dragsdahl is the Secretary-General of Vegetarian Society of Denmark (DVF) & Deputy Chair at International Vegetarian Union (IVU).

DVF is based in Denmark but also engages in international collaboration and best-practice sharing in order to strengthen the movement to reform the food system and reduce animal product consumption.

Recently, DVF received recommendations by Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) as well as by Doneer Effectief. ACE’s cost-effectiveness assessment indicating that DVF have been able to help a large number of animals at relatively little cost, and subsequently also helping the climate.

Ruben: What does it take to achieve what you have achieved? How did you get successful?

Rune-Christoffer: It may sound very basic, but in our times, I do think reminding ourselves that our target groups are human beings. There may be a vocal minority that may not want to listen, but there are also vast groups that are within reach with the right communication style.

For example: think of human-to-human connections. Some years ago, I gave talks at Danish agricultural schools. Internationally, as a movement, it is my impression that inviting ourselves out there does not happen much. It’s perceived to be unrealistic, or actually impossible. And if you get accepted into the lion’s den, what is your attitude? It should not be an overtly formal or radical one. In our movement, more people should spend more time in rural areas, in agricultural circles. The places perceived as less friendly to vegans and vegetarians are where we should dare to go. If we manage to at least gain their respect, or even better be a positive surprise, that would be super helpful.

To give understanding, provide reasonable arguments, and not tell people what to do, but to reflect on the future, we need to get better at reaching out to those who are skeptical towards the plant-based movement. Challenge, but don’t attack. A constructive critique is desirable. Give viable alternatives. For instance, our cooperation with the Danish Agriculture and Food Council, which is the main farmer’s association in Denmark, opened new doors to the right-wing of the political spectrum.

Ruben: What, according to you, would be great advice for effective environmental action for people that are looking to achieve a significant positive impact?

R-C: Generic advice: there are true antagonists, but give people the benefit of doubt, patience, compromise. In the Danish context, there was a majority in favor of maintaining the livestock industry. Either you stay outside of the deal that continues subsidizing industrial livestock. Or you decide to become part of a compromise, if that also benefits the development of the plant-based sector. This may establish funding for something new. But it’s a compromise. Idealists need to get their hands dirty.

Funding is needed for alternative solutions. For example, funding has been given to the Danish Hospitality School to establish a plant-based education track. In a few years, hundreds of plant-based chefs will graduate, this will have a large positive effect. Go for the seed of a structural change. See the strategic value in this work.

“Idealists need to get their hands dirty” - Rune-Christoffer Dragsdahl

Avoid in-fighting over different ways to develop the plant-based sector. It’s not just taxes, not just high-tech imitations, not just food education - we need all and everything in between. There is constantly a risk of oversimplification in this debate. Be careful that good people who want to change the system should not fight with each other. This applies to all sorts of movements elsewhere.

Ruben: Do you see a momentum shift in your sector?

R-C: Eleven years ago, DVF had zero employees, and Denmark was far behind other countries in terms of plant-based development. But things have developed over the last decade, and a few years ago, a first deal was struck between the Danish Government and Parliament, establishing the Plant-Based Food Grant, which has since grown to 170 million Euros. Now suddenly, the world is looking at what is happening in Denmark. Now, we can respond to the interest and work proactively at a European level to see if we can inspire towards similar action plans and funding schemes elsewhere.

In Portugal, our colleagues from ProVeg Portugal have succeeded in getting the Government to support creating a plant-based strategy.

We’re grateful for the support and funding from ACE and Doneer Effectief, as well as other donors. We’re looking to leverage the Danish story at the next UN Climate Summit. Telling the story helps normalize government action in plant-based foods. That needs to be shared! It’s not radical, it’s not about forcing people to eat something, but to make it available.

When we are talking about planetary boundaries and dietary guidelines, people talk about this as if all people will follow the guidelines. But more realistically, there will be a normal distribution. In order to reach the dietary guidelines on average, we should be grateful that there are flexitarians, pescatarians, etc. People who do eat a lot of meat should understand that it is in their interest to give their vegan friends a big hug. Because if you want to keep eating a lot of meat, it is in your interest to help give other people access to plant-based alternatives, , otherwise it won’t be possible to reach climate targets and feed the world sustainably.

🗞️ News

• We held a lunch lecture at EA Wageningen in the Netherlands!

• Effective Environmentalism recently had a great session with Agile For Good.

• Our friends over at the EcoResilience Initiative are seeking to bring an Effective Altruism -inspired mindset to biodiversity conservation. Check out their work!

And lastly:

• We’re excited to announce EE Sweden!

  EE Sweden had its first ice-breaker session on 17 March, but there’s more! A kick-off workshop will be on Saturday, 29 March at 11.00-15.00 (including lunch break). Both meetings will be held at the EA office in Stockholm on Sveavägen 76. During the kick-off workshop, the goal is that we will brainstorm and start exploring what we would like the purpose and aim of EE Sweden to be.

  Would you like to be part of it? Get in touch with the organiser Thérèce Bonnier! Would you like to start a similar initiative in your hometown? Talk with us!

📚 What we’ve been reading and listening to

Resources

• Looking for a JOB in CLIMATE CHANGE? Here are 25 sites to help you in your search.

Articles

• Project Drawdown receives US$300,000 grant from the Seeding the Future Foundation for a global food and climate solutions campaign.

• Aoife O'Leary, Head of Opportunity Green, asks: “We need your input: what gaps in climate action need to be filled?”

• Charity Navigator recently launched the Climate Change Fund.

• Giving Green’s Daniel Stein: “Systems change: the North Star of high-impact climate donations.”

• Effective Environmentalism received a shout-out on the EA Forum.

• A take by Aidan Alexander: Why alternative proteins need the non-profit sector ..and why it's not enough to leave it to the market.

• Hannah Ritchie’s podcast Solving for Climate is back!

• Social Change Lab’s James Ozden on why you can justify almost anything using historical movements.

👩‍💼 Job openings and opportunities

We are highlighting some outstanding opportunities to make a positive difference with your careers. These positions are vetted by Effective Environmentalism and 80,000 Hours and are not sponsored.

📤 Even if your dream job is not on this list, consider sharing these opportunities in your network or forward the job description to someone who would be interested.

Worldwide

• GivingGreen is hiring a senior researcher!

• Are you enthusiastic about pursuing a high-impact career using evidence-based approaches? Magnify Mentoring applications are currently open!

• Did we already say our Talent Directory in collaboration with High Impact Professionals up and running? 😉

North America

• ACE is hiring an administrative assistant!

• The Humane League has a new vacancy for a writer and editor!

Europe

• GFI Europe has interesting new vacancies!

• Future Matters is seeking a Strategic Partnerships Officer in Climate Protection!

• ProVeg’s Kickstarting For Good Incubator is open for applications!

Upcoming events

• 25-27 April 2025: EAGxNordics 2025, Oslo (with a session by yours truly)

• 6-8 June 2025: EA Global: London 2025, UK

• 11-14 September 2025: Get your tickets for the Annual CARE, Warsaw.

💶 Effective Environmentalism is looking for funding

Effective Environmentalism is currently a volunteer-run initiative. We would like to scale up our activities to more effectively grow a global community of people and organisations tackling environmental issues as effectively as possible, starting early 2025. Financial support for two salaries would help us to devote more time to growing the field of effective environmentalism.

If you are a donor or work for a grant-making organisation, please get in touch!

If you feel like these ideas are valuable, consider sharing this newsletter with your network. A small message to friends or colleagues can work wonders. We’re just a few people away from hitting 700 subscribers! Want to contribute? Consider this form!

Share Effective Environmentalism

Also, a quick reminder that you can now follow us on Bluesky and LinkedIn. Also, join our LinkedIn group to discuss effective environmental action!

In this newsletter:

1. Article: What if climate change will get much worse than we think?

2. What we’ve been reading and listening to

3. Call for media volunteers

4. Job openings and opportunities

5. We’re looking for funding

🌊 Article: What if climate change will get much worse than we think?

Now more than ever, there is a critical need to prepare for potential catastrophic climate change scenarios, even if their probability seems low. While mainstream discussions often focus on the most probable outcomes—such as gradual temperature increases, more frequent storms, and rising sea levels—our recent article argues that we must also consider less likely but far more devastating possibilities.

For instance, unexpected climate events, like the unprecedented heat records of 2023 and 2024, suggest that the Earth might be warming faster than anticipated, potentially leading to temperature rises well beyond global targets. This "fat-tailed uncertainty" in climate sensitivity indicates a small but significant chance of extreme warming, which could have catastrophic consequences for civilization.

To mitigate these extreme risks, it is necessary to advocate for immediate and comprehensive actions. Key strategies include rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, thereby halting further global warming. Additionally, there is the importance of adapting to a potentially much hotter world by developing resilient food systems and infrastructure capable of withstanding severe climate impacts.

Proactive research into climate engineering solutions is needed, such as solar radiation management and carbon sequestration, to understand their potential benefits and risks. By addressing these, we can better prepare for and possibly prevent the most severe outcomes of climate change.

📚 What we’ve been reading and listening to

• A LinkedIn post by Aidan Alexander on this graph by OurWorldInData:

  

• Foreign Policy: Where Does the Climate Movement Go From Here? The world is falling behind on its climate targets—but that’s not reason to give up hope.

• ClimateWorks blog entry: A climate crossroads: How philanthropy can bridge divides and advance action in 2025.

• By Centre for Future Generations: On the topic of climate interventions, a primer.

• Hot Take! Climate Change Is Worse Than Factory Farming, by Sarah Cheng:

  United States of Exception

  Climate Change Is Worse Than Factory Farming

  I recently turned on paid subscriptions for the newsletter. If you like this article, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. In addition to all paywalled content, you’ll gain access to the subscriber chat on the Substack app, where you can request articles and podcast episodes about topics of your choice, and I’ll link to occasional article drafts …

  Read more

  2 years ago · 41 likes · 16 comments · Glenn

• On the topic of USAID being suspended/upended:

Global Development & Economic Advancement

Looking into Project 2025: USAID

Project 2025: Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise is 922 pages of governing proposals from the Heritage Foundation, with ideas for multiple departments. From the recent executive orders it seems like parts of Project 2025 are already or in the process of being implemented…

Read more

2 years ago · 1 like · David Nash

• How corruption and climate crisis intertwine:

Net Zero Notes

Contracts, corruption and climate

In the power sector, there unfolds a complex story where corruption and climate intertwine, showing how tackling the former can help the latter…

Read more

2 years ago · 4 likes · Dr Sugandha Srivastav

👩‍💼 Job openings and opportunities

We are highlighting some outstanding opportunities to make a positive difference with your careers. These positions are vetted by Effective Environmentalism and 80,000 Hours and are not sponsored.

📤 Even if your dream job is not on this list, consider sharing these opportunities in your network or forward the job description to someone who would be interested.

Worldwide

• Wanted: media volunteers to help us with our next newsletters and outreach efforts!

• AIM's charity entrepreneurship & research program applications are open!

Europe

• Opportunity Green - Philanthropy Manager

United States

• Energy Policy Institute - Monitoring & Evaluation Specialist, EPIC Air Quality Fund

• Food System Innovations - Climate Director

Upcoming events

• 14-16 March 2025: EAGxCDMX 2025, Ciudad de México
  Application deadline: 24 February 2025

• 25-27 April 2025: EAGxNordics 2025, Oslo

• 6-8 June 2025: EA Global: London 2025, UK

EAG(x) conferences bring people together to foster collaboration on projects and address global challenges.

💶 Effective Environmentalism is looking for funding

Effective Environmentalism is currently a volunteer-run initiative. We would like to scale up our activities to more effectively grow a global community of people and organisations tackling environmental issues as effectively as possible, starting early 2025. Financial support for two salaries would help us to devote more time to growing the field of effective environmentalism.

If you are a donor or work for a grant-making organisation, please get in touch.

If you feel like these ideas are valuable, consider sharing this newsletter with your network. A small message to friends or colleagues can work wonders. We’re just a few people away from hitting 700 subscribers!

Share Effective Environmentalism

Also, a quick reminder that you can now follow us on Bluesky and LinkedIn. Also, join our LinkedIn group to discuss effective environmental action!

In this newsletter:

1. Trump will take office. What’s next for effective climate action?

2. Share your climate charity ideas!

3. Community spotlight: Jennifer Stratton

4. What we’ve been reading and listening to

5. Job openings and opportunities

6. We’re looking for funding

🐘 Trump will take office. What’s next for effective climate action?

The election of Donald Trump is undoubtedly a major set-back for American climate ambitions. Trump denies the scientific consensus on climate change and used his previous term to leave the Paris agreement, roll back the Clean Power Plan, and attempt to freeze fuel efficiency standards. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Energy is Chris Wright, a fracking CEO who – perhaps unsurprisingly – denies the existence of a climate crisis.

While that doesn’t seem to bode well for tackling global warming, we don’t have the luxury to wait for an administration willing to take bold action on climate. Instead, we must ask ourselves what impactful levers still exist for tackling climate change in the current political wind. Luckily, there are still things that we can do:

• 💰 Economics always win. Solar and wind are the cheapest source of electricity. Almost all projects requesting to be connected to the grid are clean electricity and battery storage. Electric vehicles are seeing unprecedented growth. The new administration can’t rewind the clock on progress and innovation. Let’s continue driving down the price and increasing adoption of this tech. (Heatmap)

• 🌏 Look beyond borders. The US emits 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but is only expected to emit 6% to 12% of the emissions during the rest of the century. Climate and energy groups expect that the Trump administration will increase US emissions by about 20%.1 That’s roughly another 2% of all global emissions. Getting climate wins in Europe, Canada, Asia and elsewhere remains important. (Founders Pledge)

• 🚏 Use tariffs. Trump and his allies have been staunch supporters of tariffs, which may make it much more tractable to tax the carbon pollution of imports, similar to Europe’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. (E&E news)

• ⚡ Deregulate clean energy. American Republicans have long pushed for deregulating sectors. Reducing the regulatory burden on clean energy – where desirable – could make it much cheaper and easier to get geothermal projects of the ground. In November, two geothermal bills passed the House with all Republicans voting in favour.

• 🏛️ Work with states. During the first Trump term and G.W. Bush’s administrations, US states increased their climate ambitions. They can do so again. (CCI)

🗣 Share your climate charity ideas!

Ambitious Impact (AIM) is looking for your ideas for promising climate solutions and charity ideas with strong co-benefits for humans and/or animals. The AIM research team will identify the most promising interventions to recommend to their charity incubation program. Submit your ideas via this form (~ 2 minutes).2

Submit your charity ideas

🏔 Community spotlight: Jennifer Stratton

In July of last year, Jennifer Stretton launched Mieux Donner, a French non-profit helping people find the most effective charities to donate to. She has a background in geography, marketing, business consultancy, and mountain guiding! Jen began retraining as an International Mountain Leader, pursuing her passion for the outdoors. For the last seven years she has split her time between guiding multi-day hiking trips in the Alps, back-country ski trips in the Arctic, and marketing work.

Ruben: What are your motivations for co-founding Mieux Donner?

Jennifer: I’ve always been passionate about ethics and the idea of ‘living a good life.’ For the past 12 years, I’ve been practicing Zen Buddhism, which has deeply influenced my perspective on life and altruism.

In 2021, I read The Life You Can Save by Peter Singer, which introduced me to the concept of effective altruism. It was a transformative moment—I realized that my altruistic actions could have a far greater impact than I’d ever imagined. Motivated by this, I began researching impactful careers and took the 10% Pledge, committing to donate 10% of my income to the world’s most effective charities.

A year ago, I was accepted into the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program, where I co-launched Mieux Donner. I was driven by the desire to make a positive contribution to combating climate change—an issue close to my heart, particularly as I live in the Alps and witness the glaciers retreating year after year.

Mieux Donner’s mission is to maximize the positive impact we can achieve by raising as much money as possible for the world’s most effective charities. We gather research from leading independent charity evaluators specializing in global health, animal welfare, and climate change. Using this data, we curate a shortlist of charities that deliver the greatest positive impact per euro donated.

Our methodology is rooted in the principles of the effective altruism movement, which emphasizes using reason and scientific evidence to guide altruistic decision-making. This approach ensures that every donation contributes to creating meaningful and measurable change.

What is the biggest challenge or thing you would like to see differently in the world?

It might sound idealistic, but I truly believe the world would benefit from more collaboration and kindness. We already have the resources and knowledge to address some of the biggest challenges we face—climate change, global poverty, and animal suffering. Yet, we fall short because we don’t work together effectively, either on an individual or global scale.

This lack of collaboration is deeply frustrating because the consequences will affect us all. The potential to solve these problems exists; what’s missing is the collective will to act decisively and cooperatively.

What does effective environmentalism mean to you?

For me, it is a movement of individuals committed to making the greatest possible positive impact on the environment during their lifetimes. This involves leveraging their careers, donations, and influence to identify and pursue the most impactful ways to drive meaningful change.

For me, this translates into raising as much money as possible for the most effective climate charities through Mieux Donner. Personally, it means taking pragmatic steps to reduce my own footprint. As a guide, it involves educating the groups I lead about how they can not only minimize their carbon footprint but also think beyond it—understanding how they can use their careers and finances to create significant, lasting positive change.

📚 What we’ve been reading and listening to

New resources

• Effective Thesis has re-vamped its climate change page. A useful resource for students or researchers interested in making a significant positive impact through research.

Interesting articles (Yes, that’s quite a few this month!)

• Will a food carbon tax lead to more animals being slaughtered? A quantitative model (Soemano Zeijlmans, also writing this newsletter). Theoretically, a carbon tax will make beef more expensive, so people might eat more chicken, which would be bad for animal welfare. Luckily, this doesn’t seem to be the case. (Full pre-print on SSRN.)

• How Madrid built its metro cheaply by rewarding fast and inexpensive delivery, streamlining planning, using tried-and-tested designs, and having a pipeline of projects to build state capacity (Ben Hopkinson, Works in Progress)

• No, kerosene did not save the sperm whale. In fact, sperm whale catches were about ten times higher after the introduction of kerosene lanterns. What worked: government bans on whaling and the subsequent cultivation of jojoba. (Ed Conway, Material World)

• Solar Geoengineering: The Global South’s Stake in a High-Stakes Debate (Rose M. Mutiso)

• Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment. And a plea to think seriously about climate change without getting distracted (Andy Masley)

• IEA report on The Future of Geothermal Energy. Geothermal is at a critical juncture to drive down costs and drill deeper. Recommendations include addressing development risks, permitting, and environmental and social concerns.

• Deforestation in the Amazon has halved in the last few years (Hannah Ritchie, Sustainability by numbers)

• Microplastics and PFAS Are Dominating Headlines, But Lead is Probably Worse (Lee Crawfurd, CGD)

• Near-term benefits from investment in climate adaptation complement long-term economic returns from emissions reduction. Reduce emissions to avert long-term damage. Adapt to reduce short-term damage (Duan et al., Communications Earth & Environment).

• Using Pull Finance for Market-driven Infrastructure and Asset Resilience. How a simple change to R&D funding can make climate adaptation funding much more effective (Ben Stephans & Sebastian Chaskel, FAS)

Podcasts

• Sam Bowman on why housing still isn't fixed and what would actually work (80,000 Hours podcast). Many fixes for building more houses can also work for tackling climate change or other environmental challenges.

• Cameron Meyer Shorb on dismantling the myth that we can’t do anything to help wild animals (80,000 Hours podcast)

👩‍💼 Job openings and opportunities

We are highlighting some outstanding opportunities to make a positive difference with your careers. These positions are vetted by Effective Environmentalism and 80,000 Hours and are not sponsored.

📤 Even if your dream job is not on this list, consider sharing these opportunities in your network or forward the job description to someone who would be interested.

Worldwide

• Applications are open for the AIM Research Program (April-June cohort), a fully-funded 12-week program providing you with the skills, mentorship, and tools you need to produce impactful, decision-relevent research.3 (Deadline: February 2nd)

Asia

• Climate Lead/Head at Asia Philanthropy Circle (Singapore)

• Senior Policy Specialist, Asia at the Good Food Institute (remote)

Europe

• Fellowship Event Freelancer and Fellowship Event Intern at the School for Moral Ambition (Amsterdam, NL)

• Senior Policy Manager in Climate Protection at Future Matters (Brussels, BE)

• The Impactful Policy Careers Accelerator is recruiting people for a fully-funded, intensive programme that prepares talented individuals to create meaningful change through policy careers, focusing on sustainable food systems and agricultural transformation. (Deadline: January 19th, so apply now!)

United States

• Food Policy Pathways is a newly-launched non-profit helping talented people pursue impactful careers in food policy within city, state, and federal governments.

• Research Professional, Market Shaping Accelerator at Development Innovation Lab, University of Chicago

Upcoming events

• 21-23 February 2025: EA Global: Bay Area 2025, Oakland, CA, USA
  Application deadline: 2 February 2025

• 14-16 March 2025: EAGxCDMX 2025, Ciudad de México
  Application deadline: 24 February 2025

• 25-27 April 2025: EAGxNordics 2025, Oslo

• 6-8 June 2025: EA Global: London 2025, UK

EAG(x) conferences bring people together to foster collaboration on projects and address global challenges.

💶 Effective Environmentalism is looking for funding

Effective Environmentalism is currently a volunteer-run initiative. We would like to scale up our activities to more effectively grow a global community of people and organisations tackling environmental issues as effectively as possible, starting early 2025. Financial support for two salaries would help us to devote more time to growing the field of effective environmentalism.

If you are a donor or work for a grant-making organisation, please get in touch.

If you’ve been enjoying this newsletter so far, consider sharing it with your network. A small message to friends or colleagues can work wonders. We’re close to hitting 700 subscribers!

Share Effective Environmentalism

💶 Exceptional climate charities for Giving Season 2024

During the last month of the year, many people choose to donate to causes they care about. We believe that donating is a great way to contribute to systems change for tackling climate change and other environmental issues. But did you know that there are astounding differences in the cost-effectiveness of different charities? Donating to the best charities can easily be a 100x more impactful than donating to average ones!

What are the most impactful charities that tackle climate change? For your donations, consider following independent research organisations that identify the world’s most effective climate charities through rigorous analysis. The charity researchers at Giving Green have identified the following non-profits as the cutting-edge of climate philanthropy in the last year:

• 🌋 Project Innerspace is making the rapid development of next-generation geothermal energy possible by mapping heat resources and starting demonstration projects.

• 🚢 Opportunity Green is eliminating emissions from maritime shipping and aviation, sectors that are growing but get little attention in climate action.

• 🔨 Industrious Labs is making the production of essential steel, aluminium, cement and heat possible with circular and cleaner production.

• 🧆 The Good Food Institute is revolutionising the food system by advancing sustainable proteins, like plant-based and cultivated meat, to drastically reduce the emissions and pollution from industrial animal agriculture.1

• 🔬 Future Cleantech Architects accelerates innovation in critical industries where sustainable solutions are still in early stages. They advocate for responsible and effective R&D spending.

• ⛅ The Clean Air Task Force is pushing for policy change and innovation to meet the world’s rising energy demand in a way that’s financially, socially, and environmentally sustainable.

Haven’t heard of these charities before? Most people haven’t. Larger charities are often already well-funded and work on climate solutions that are less neglected. Smaller charities usually have a larger capacity to absorb new funding: small donations may allow them to expand their programmes or team substantially. This is why your donations - even if they’re smaller - can actually make a big difference in a global problem like climate change!

Can’t choose between these organisations? You don’t have to. You can simply donate to the Giving Green Fund and your donations will be spread among these charities.

Donate to effective climate charities

For more recommendations and giving options, see our website.

(This newsletter has independently decided to highlight Giving Green’s recommendations because of their thorough research process. We are not paid by or affiliated with Giving Green or any of the recommended charities.)

🐛 Effective philanthropy for biodiversity conservation

What can charities and donors best tackle biodiversity collapse? The German non-profit Effektiv Spenden has published a report on effective giving for biodiversity. Biodiversity supports human well-being, is important to the global economy, and is an important buffer against global warming. The biggest drivers of biodiversity are land use change and overexploitation through logging, hunting, and fishing.

While environmental philanthropy has grown rapidly in the past few years, most resources spent are not allocated to have the greatest impact. Effektiv Spenden identified these impact areas to be particularly impactful, since they tackle a large driver of biodiversity collapse, it should be easy to make progress, and few philanthropic resources are used to address the issue. They are also tackling urgent issues that exacerbate of time.

1. 🥓 Alternative proteins. Switching from animal-based to plant-based and cultivated meat can make a big dent in the land-use footprint of agriculture, especially with global meat demand on the rise.

2. ⛓ Supply chain transparency. Ensuring companies are held responsible for ecological damage like deforestation is vital for effective conservation.

3. ⚖ Legal action. Implementing environmental regulations and leveraging litigation can drive transformation in sectors contributing to biodiversity decline.

4. 💧 Wetland conservation and restoration. Wetlands, offering exceptional carbon storage and biodiversity support, are undervalued and vanishing rapidly despite their critical ecological roles.

Read the report

📰 Short news and organisational updates

• 🗣 Forum announcement: We’ve posted to the Effective Altruism Forum about our plans for Effective Environmentalism field-building and our funding gap. (Read more about our funding gap below.)

• 🥗 Food security: ALLFED, a non-profit food security non-profit, has prepared a database of research projects for volunteers interested in food security for global catastrophic scenarios.

• 🍖 Library of Interventions for Meat Elimination: Researchers from Rethink Priorities and Tilburg University have launched a growing collection of experimental studies examining interventions to reduce animal product consumption. It’s helpful to understand the state of the research and the evidence base for different interventions. (Currently in beta.)

• 🌋 Geothermal energy: The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill with bipartisan support to remove permitting regulations for geothermal power plants. Concerns remain over bypassing environmental regulations.

• 🇳🇱 Dutch Climate Plan: We’ve worked with the Dutch effective environmentalism and effective altruism communities to improve the Dutch Climate Plan by responding to the public consultation.

• 🇪🇺 Protein brewing: Fermentation startup Farmless received a €1 million grant from the EU regional development fund to brew protein without agricultural land.

• 🦋 Butterflies are the new blue birds. We’re now on Bluesky via @effectiveenv.bsky.social. Also check out our Bluesky Starter Pack.

📚 What we’ve been reading and listening to

• 🐜 Is insect farming really a climate solution? New research finds significant economic and environmental challenges:

  • Most farmed insects are used for farm animal feed and pet food, which supports conventional livestock farming rather than replacing it - which diminishes the expected environmental benefits.

  • Insect-based products emit two to ten times more greenhouse gases than traditional pet food.

• 🍖 Paper (preprint): Meaningfully reducing consumption of meat and animal products is an unsolved problem: A meta-analysis. Most researched interventions only have small effects, but promising interventions still await rigorous evaluation.

• ⚡ Paper (published): Exploring cultures of evidence in energy policymaking in the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands. Dutch and German systems emphasise independence through external expertise, while the UK prioritises procedural credibility, reflecting distinct institutional histories and beliefs about impartiality.

• 🐘 Opinion: Trump Is Not the End of the Climate Fight (Jesse Jenkins) and Climate trade bills may get momentum under Trump (Emma Dumain)

• 🌍 Opinion: The World Bank and other IFIs should get serious about climate adaptation in low-income countries. Instead of merely externalizing high-income countries’ policy priorities (especially mitigation), focus should be on promoting energy access for rapid growth and adaptation. (Ken Opalo)

📆 Upcoming events

• December 5: Powering systems change: Bold climate philanthropy for 2025 and beyond. Presentation of Giving Green’s strategy and recommendations featuring leaders from the top non-profits announced above.

• December 5: Ambitious Impact (AIM) (formerly Charity Entrepreneurship) is hosting a virtual event with talks from founders of their 40+ charities covering the successes and challenges they’ve encountered over the last year as they’ve scaled, pivoted, or just gotten started. AIM will also share updates on its expansion to new programs and paths to impact.2

• December 14-15: EAGxSingapore 2024. Conference for people in Southeast and East Asia who want to do the most good, also outside the environmental domain. (Applications have closed.)

• February 21-23: EA Global: Bay Area 2025. Conference for people who want to do the most good, also outside the environmental domain. (Applications have closed.)

👩‍💼 Job openings and opportunities

We are highlighting some outstanding opportunities to make a positive difference with your careers. These positions are vetted by Effective Environmentalism and 80,000 Hours and are not sponsored.

Europe

• Senior Policy Manager in Climate Protection at Future Matters (Brussels) (For more experienced candidates: Head of Climate Protection)

United States

• U.S. Federal Policy Manager at the Clean Air Task Force (Washington, D.C.)

Remote

• Air Quality Scientist and Data Scientist at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air

Other

• Tälist’s Alt. Protein Career & Hiring Report with data-driven insights for alternative protein job seekers and employers is now available, providing a look into hiring trends, skill gaps, and regional growth in the industry. This report is a valuable guide to help you navigate the future of food.

• Sign up for the High Impact Professionals Talent Directory to find impactful employment.

• Have you joined our new Effective Environmentalism LinkedIn group yet? Share links, ask questions, and find collaborators on your projects. It’s a great way to stay up-to-date with the effective environmentalism community and find employment.

Join the LinkedIn group

You can find more impactful environmental job openings at 80,000 Hours, or find careers specific to developing alternative proteins here.

💶 Effective Environmentalism is looking for funding

Effective Environmentalism is currently a volunteer-run initiative, but we would like to scale up our activities to more effectively grow a global community of people and organisations tackling environmental issues as effectively as possible, starting early 2025. Financial support would help us to devote more time to growing the field of effective environmentalism.

If you are a donor or work for a grant-making organisation, please get in touch.

If you’ve been enjoying this newsletter so far, consider sharing it with your network. A small message to friends or colleagues can work wonders. We’re close to hitting 700 subscribers!

Share Effective Environmentalism

With the recent re-election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, climate action has fundamentally changed. 🇺🇸 We’ll explore the implications in future newsletters, but if you already want to read something now, we recommend Founders Pledge’s election-proofing philanthropy strategy or this LinkedIn post by Future Matters’ Vegard Beyer.

💬 Career spotlight: Working on alternative protein policy in the EU

Tijn van Vugt is a visiting fellow at the Institute for European Environmental Policy. Let’s get to know him and his work! Tijn, what is IEEP and what are impact-driven sustainability policy strategies?

“The Institute for European Environmental Policy is an independent sustainability think tank and a trusted advisor for almost over half a century to European policy makers. It helps policy makers to develop impactful strategies to improve sustainability by conducting evidence-based research. The think tank consists of many experts, especially regarding agriculture and food, biodiversity and land-use. Research from IEEP is proving already for a long time that our current agrifood system is not sustainable.”

Why did you join and how well did your background prepare you for that?

“I want to contribute to a more sustainable agrifood system, and I believe that this is one of the greatest challenges at this time. I believe that our agrifood system is a victim and driver of the climate crisis and already exceeds our planetary boundaries, by taking up half of the world’s habitable surface and impacting biodiversity, water-usage, animal welfare and public health. This will require a dietary shift to plant-based foods, researching promising agrifood innovations and creating opportunities for farmers to transition to a sustainable agrifood system.

I joined IEEP through a fellowship from the School for Moral Ambition, as founded by Rutger Bregman. Before joining IEEP, I worked in strategy consulting, local policy-making and the non-profit sector. I hope that my previous experience sets me up to achieve positive impact effectively with as few resources as possible.”

“I’ve been working at IEEP for a month now, but before that I received a training with a group of fellows to enable my career switch from strategy consulting to a sustainability think tank. We learned about the mechanism of the agrifood industry from a range of incredible experts, and where they believe that the opportunities are to improve its sustainability. We concluded the training with a week in Brussels to explore how the world of European politics looks like, and how non-profits can reach policy makers to discuss their impactful ideas.”

What needs to change according to you?

“Ultimately, we need to build a sustainable agrifood system in Europe and across the globe. I think that this requires disruptive changes in what and how much we consume and the way we produce our foods. In my view, we need to start creating food environments for consumers where the sustainable plant-based food option is affordable, available and attractive. Besides, consumers need clear labelling to distinguish sustainable foods from other options. Farmers and food processors need this demand to produce food sustainably, and public procurement can play a pivotal role to kick-start this. Down the line, we need a European-wide strategy spanning demand and supply policies to develop a sustainable agrifood system.”

🔔 Short news

• Giving Green has updated their philanthropic strategies and the world’s most effective non-profits.

• The Dutch Government has published a public consultation for its Climate Plan 2025-2035. We believe this poses an excellent potentially impactful opportunity to exert influence on environmental policy. We’re pushing for grassroots advocacy to help people submit their ideas. Want to join? Contact us!

• Effective Environmentalism’s Ruben Dieleman was part of a panel at the most recent edition of Tien Procent Club Rotterdam to talk about effective climate giving, as well as a talk to EA Bergen online.

  

• The Good Food Institute has expanded to Japan.

• Centre for Feed Innovation has started! The new NGO is accelerating the development of novel feed ingredients.

• A cool app we’d like to highlight: The Green Policies Dashboard

• Applications for the EAGxVirtual 2024 impact conference close on November 14th.

• Online winter school: Climate Change and the Long-Term Future, University of Groningen. 29/30 January 2025

• Project Innerspace produced a song and it’s unironically 🔥fire🔥

📰 What we’ve been reading and listening to

• 80.000 Hours has an update with regards to their problem ranking of climate change.

• Nate Silver on the 80,000 Hours podcast:

I wonder if climate is this example of this issue that EA sees as overindexed. There was a lot of concern about climate, but what if you built climate organisations that are more “rational”? Is that an underexploited niche? Because they get so political and they get so embedded in the progressive politics. Could you build a climate organisation that’s somehow immune from, shall we say, the dangers of wokeness and things like that, and co-option from people who want to adopt that for non-climate objectives?

• Scholar Yascha Mounk has ideas on what Effective Environmentalism should look like:

Yascha Mounk

Where Environmentalists Went Wrong

This is the second installment in my series on effective altruism. The first piece, a meditation on how the movement went wrong and why its core intuition is nonetheless worth defending, was published last week…

Read more

2 years ago · 114 likes · 17 comments · Yascha Mounk

• Four effective giving opportunities for stopping biodiversity loss, according to Effectiv Spenden, are alternative proteins, supply chain transparency, legal action, and wetland conservation.

• Technical Report on Decarbonizing High-Temperature Heat in Industry by Future Cleantech Architects

• Weighted Factor Models: Consider using the geometric mean instead of the arithmetic mean. A forum post about making better decisions by Soemano Zeijlmans, one of our co-directors.

👩‍💼 Job openings

We are highlighting some outstanding opportunities to make a positive difference with your careers. These positions are vetted by Effective Environmentalism and 80,000 Hours and are not sponsored.

Europe

• The Good Food Institute Europe is looking for two Policy Officers to join our EU policy team.

Other

• Have you joined our new Effective Environmentalism LinkedIn group yet? Share links, ask questions, and find collaborators on your projects. It’s a great way to stay up-to-date with the effective environmentalism community.

Join the LinkedIn group

You can find more impactful environmental job openings at 80,000 Hours, or find careers specific to developing alternative proteins here.

💶 Consider Effective Environmentalism for Giving Season

Effective Environmentalism is currently a volunteer-run initiative, but we would like to scale up our activities to more effectively grow a global community of people and organisations tackling environmental issues as effectively as possible. Financial support would help us to devote more time to growing the field of effective environmentalism.

If you are a donor or work for a grant-making organisation, please get in touch.

If you’ve been enjoying this newsletter so far, consider sharing it with your network. A small message to friends or colleagues can work wonders. We’re close to hitting 600 subscribers!

Share Effective Environmentalism

The case for working on solutions that don’t work (yet)

The bottom line: solar and wind are growing incredibly fast. But to end all emissions, we’ll need to develop and grow other energy technologies, too. Instead of focusing on solutions that work, we should put more resources into making solutions work.

The incredible growth of renewables

Renewables have seen an extraordinary growth worldwide. For example, the production of solar energy has doubled every three years between 2016 and 2022. In fact, the growth of solar energy is going so fast that the International Energy Agency (IEA) keeps having to raise its solar growth forecast by a lot each year. Despite the updates, the IEA has an ‘excellent’ track record of substantially underestimating the growth of solar energy. None of the predictions that the agency made in the last two decades were even close to the actual growth of solar. The success factor? The cost has kept falling and policies have started to support renewables.

That’s great news. It means that emissions will likely be less high than once expected. The chance of a 4 °C or even 5 °C warming by the end of the century has become very unlikely. A more realistic forecast is 2.7 °C warming. This is still way too high, but we can make that much lower if we take effective action.

Why we can’t - and shouldn’t - bet on solar and wind to fix the climate problem

Solar and wind can certainly get us very far. They’re one of the plenty available, scalable, and financially viable solutions that we can - and should - scale up now.

But can solar and wind fully power the global energy supply? In the end, we need to get to zero emissions, so we need to be prepared for when solar and wind can’t outcompete fossil fuels.1 For example, it will be difficult to use solar and wind in industry and transport, build sufficient transmission infrastructure or create enough energy storage capacity. This latter problem is also called the ‘intermittency problem’. We can overcome the intermittency problem in five main ways, according to think-tank Future Cleantech Architects:

1. 🔌 Expanding the transmission network. With a wider area covered, there’s a bigger chance that it will be windy or sunny somewhere.

2. 📈 Building extra capacity. Build so much generation capacity that we still have enough when there’s little wind or sun.

3. 🚦 Managing demand. Getting people and companies to use less electricity when there’s little sun and wind.

4. 🔋 Storing energy. Generate energy when there’s sun and wind, and use it later. For example, by building batteries, thermal energy storage, or pumping water or air.

5. ⚡ Installing dispatchable clean power. The most simple way to deal with intermittent energy is to have a clean power source available whenever you need it. For example, hot rock geothermal energy or next-generation nuclear power.

Why it makes sense to focus more on solutions that don’t work yet.

Further growing solar and wind is meaningful work. They can scale up further, and they’re tractable solutions that are proven to work. However, it is not a very neglected field. With costs declining so rapidly, one person’s extra donations, or one extra person dedicating their career to this area, likely won’t put a large dent in emissions. (Unless, of course, your position or background uniquely enables you to make a big difference here.)

Compare that to improving energy storage or getting new clean energy sources to work. Some of these solutions will be a bit less scalable, or they might be harder to work on, but they’re so neglected that even one person can make a considerable difference!

• 💴 Donate to effective charities working on neglected solutions. The charitable funds by Giving Green and Founders Pledge tackle the intermittency problem, among other high-impact climate work. For example, Giving Green’s fund finances Project Innerspace, a nonprofit unlocking new geothermal resources in population centres in the Global South.

• 👷‍♀️ Work on solving the intermittency problem yourself. Check out the career advice by High Impact Engineers. Even if you’re not an engineer yourself, this guide will help you find solutions to work on with different skills or high-impact organisations that may be hiring.

Organisational updates from Effective Environmentalism

• Join the new Effective Environmentalism LinkedIn group! Share links, ask questions, and find collaborators on your projects. It’s a great way to stay up-to-date with the effective environmentalism community.

Join the LinkedIn group

• New learning resources. Our website has been updated with a list of resources to learn more about effective environmentalism. Check out the recommended books, articles, websites, podcasts, and YouTube videos. Be sure to check out the new Effective Environmentalism Spotify podcast playlist.

• EAGx Berlin. Our co-directors Ruben and Soem attended the EAGx Berlin conference this weekend to present our field-building work and connect to changemakers in climate change, environment, and other causes. Our workshop (slides available here) saw 60+ attendees and we enjoyed going in more depth during our office hours and one-on-one conversations. There was also a great atmosphere at the climate change mitigation meetup and the talk on sustainable cement by Future Cleantech Architects.

• Team updates. Ruben is working with the Dutch National Think Tank on circularity and the built environment, and Soem will be joining the Research Program at Ambitious Impact as a fellow. Both commitments end in December 2024, so until then we’ll be working on Effective Environmentalism part-time.

• Call for funding. From early 2025 onwards, we aim to start field-building full-time and we’re looking for funding (~€ 8,500 EUR/month) to make that happen. If you’re a donor or grantmaker, please get in touch. We will use the funding for expanding available learning resources, increasing engagement with the environmental movement, developing a career guide, and establishing online and local communities.

🔔 Short news

• Meet the EU’s new ‘pragmatic’ energy and climate leadership (Nikolaus J. Kurmayer, Euractiv). The new team of commissioners-designate with climate responsibilities are a mix of left and right. No major change in policymaking is expected, but the left’s more socially-oriented ambition in the energy transition may be dampened. The next mandate will also include a Commissioner for Intergenerational Fairness: Glenn Micallef from Malta.

• Dutch effective giving organisation Doneer Effectief has awarded € 162,000 EUR to Opportunity Green. This organisation uses litigation and policy as an instrument for climate solutions, amplifies the voice of climate vulnerable countries, and lead an alliance for decarbonisation in aviation and maritime shipping.

• The inaugural cohort of the Moral Ambition fellowship have started their work to advance the protein transition and fight the tobacco industry.

📚 What we’ve been reading

• ReFuelEU Aviation's Targets: A Feasibility Assessment. Future Cleantech Architects (FCA) has published a report on the feasibility of upscaling sustainable aviation fuel. Key considerations include the availability of feedstocks for biofuels, production potential for bio- and synthetic fuels, and the electricity need to produce jet fuels.

• The social costs of keystone species collapse: Evidence from the decline of vultures in India (Frank and Sudarshan, AER). The near-extinction of vultures in India increased mortality by more than 4%. After the patent on diclofenac - a common painkiller - expired in India, it started being used in animals. Vultures consuming the carcasses of these animals died, which led to more feral dogs, more rabies, and unsafe sanitation. (Upcoming publication in AER, preprint available on SSRN)

• Positive trends on alternative proteins (Lewis Bollard). Better products, better merchandising, and more research can give us hope for the upcoming decennia.

• Trends in climate philanthropy: Exploring the funding landscape in India (India Climate Collaborative). A first-of-its-kind assessment of climate giving in India, based on a data from 65 funders.

• African development in an era of climate change (Ken Opalo). Poverty is not a viable climate strategy; access to energy is a critical component of economic development. African leaders should play geopolitical hardball to access funds and technologies for the climate transition.

• Diversity is the spice of life (Jonathan Tonkin). How biodiversity increases resilience and ecosystem services.

• Christians for Impact has published a report for Christians considering working on tackling climate change effectively as part of their Christian calling.

• How much energy does desalinisation use? (Hannah Ritchie)

  • Also check out this video on a new desalinisation technology (Just Have a Think, YouTube)

• No basis for claim that 80% of biodiversity is found in Indigenous territories (Fernández-Llamazares et al., Nature). Biodiversity can’t be divided into countable units, and cannot be mapped globally. Rather, the authors argue that the conservation community should acknowledge the crucial roles of Indigenous Peoples in stewardship comprehensibly.

• Cut Norwegian electric car subsidies - and spend the money abroad (Mofoss and Sterri, Langsikt). Many Norwegians would buy electric cars even without a subsidy, the subsidy is expensive, and it makes cycling and public transport less effective. International climate action is way more cost-effective. (Automatic translation from the Norwegian version.)

Several posts on the Effective Altruism forum:

• Green basic income and health taxes as a way for systemic change (Ulf Johansson)

• Comparing cost-effectiveness of investment in public transport in London vs out of London for reducing carbon emissions (Pratyusha Singh, high school student)

• Seeking High-Impact Project Ideas for a Consultancy Firm (Arie Pille)

👩‍💼 Job openings

We are highlighting some outstanding opportunities to make a positive difference with your careers. These positions are vetted by Effective Environmentalism and 80,000 Hours and are not sponsored.

United States

• Two roles at Project Drawdown:

  • Administrative Manager

  • Grant Writer / Development Communications Specialist

Europe

• Several positions at the Good Food Institute Europe in philanthropy and policy

• Consultant - Germany Affairs at the Clean Air Task Force

You can find more impactful environmental job openings at 80,000 Hours, or find careers specific to developing alternative proteins here.

We are grateful to our readers Magnolia Tovar and Joran Buwalda for suggesting content. Use this form to suggest content for the next newsletter. We love to read your ideas!

If you’ve been enjoying this newsletter so far, consider sharing it with your network. A small message to friends or colleagues can work wonders. We’re close to hitting 600 subscribers!

Share Effective Environmentalism

✊ The Effectiveness of Social Movements

In this newsletter, we dive into social movements, protests, and activism. Social movements have been responsible for massive social and political changes. What makes a protest movement successful, how can philanthropists support them, and what language should climate and environmental activists use to appeal to wider audiences?

📣 Tactics

James Özden and Sam Glover from Social Change Lab wrote a report titled What makes a protest movement successful? about the evidence base of social movements using protests as their main tactic. The graphic below summarises various tactics, based on a a literature review, interviews with academics and social movement experts, public opinion polling, a case study and interviews with policymakers. It shows Social Change Lab’s most recent estimates (Spring 2023), and the strength of the evidence for the relative importance of different success factors.

🤝 Philanthropic support of social movements

Cathy Rogers and James Özden’s How Philanthropists Can Support Social Movements - and Why They Must from May 2023 may be over a year old now, but has not lost any of its relevance. This research by Social Change Lab outlines the pivotal role that philanthropy plays in empowering social movements - among which is (effective) environmentalism.

The paper rounds up the following key elements of protest movements, and tells us what is to be done in order to improve their effectiveness:

1. Long-Term, Flexible Funding: Possibly a no-brainer, but social movements require sustained support rather than short-term grants.

2. Partnerships with Movement Leaders: Philanthropists should build trust-based relationships with movement leaders.

3. Capacity Building, which could include investing in organisational capacity, enhances a movement's effectiveness.

4. Funding Advocacy and Litigation, critical tools for achieving systemic change.

5. Embracing Risk: Social movements often challenge the status quo, requiring philanthropists, who themselves could be part of this status quo, to take bold, calculated risks.

For some, a rather uncomfortable truth arises from the paper: philanthropic engagement is essential for driving significant social change, which should urge philanthropists to go beyond traditional funding models and actively support the strategic needs of social movements.

🪧 Communications

With regards to effective communications, Effective Environmentalism recently spoke with Caroline Behringer from Potential Climate Coalition. Their report tellingly named Talk Like A Human holds that traditional climate messaging is often too complicated, technical, or alarmist, which alienates the general public.

Instead, communicators should use simple, relatable language that connects emotionally and practically with people's everyday lives. Climate change, however, remains a highly complex issue - it’s just the way we communicate (about) it that should be less so. By talking "like a human", the aim is to make climate change more understandable, relatable, and urgent for broader audiences.

Key takeaways:

1. Simplify Language: Avoid jargon like "decarbonization" or "net zero." Use terms like "pollution" and "overheating" that resonate more clearly with the public.

2. Avoid Exaggeration: Stick to the facts without resorting to catastrophe messaging. Alarmist tones can polarize audiences, particularly those not already engaged with the issue.

3. Non-Partisan Communication: Messages should appeal across the political spectrum. Emphasize universal values like protecting communities and conserving resources.

4. Localize the Impact: People care more about issues that affect their immediate surroundings. Frame climate change in terms of local consequences rather than distant global impacts.

5. Humanize the Message: Focus on the human impact of climate change rather than abstract concepts. Messages that feature relatable people or scenarios are more persuasive.

6. Pollution Framing: Reframe climate action as a fight against pollution rather than against climate change itself. This approach clarifies accountability and motivates action.

7. Present Immediate Concerns: Focus on the tangible, current impacts of climate change instead of distant future projections. Present solutions that are relevant today.

8. Credible Messengers: The effectiveness of a message increases significantly when delivered by trusted sources, such as scientists, farmers, or firefighters, rather than politicians.

There is much, much more literature on the topic of the effectiveness of (environmentalist) movements that can be found, but for reasons of brevity and familiarity, we chose to highlight the findings above. Want to engage with us and our community on this topic? Send us an email or join our Slack channel!

💶 Effective Environmentalism is looking for funding

Effective Environmentalism is currently a volunteer-run initiative, but we would like to scale up our activities to more effectively grow a global community of people and organisations tackling environmental issues as effectively as possible. Financial support would help us to devote more time to growing the field of effective environmentalism.

If you are a donor or work for a grant-making organisation, please get in touch.

🔔 Short news

• Join us at EAGx Berlin! From 13 to 15 September we’ll be at this conference to talk about and inspire effective environmental action. EAGx events are exciting conferences for people who want to tackle global challenges as effectively as possible. You may connect with like-minded people, learn new ideas, grow your career, and find meaningful work. Registration closes Wednesday 28 August, so sign up now!

Sign up for EAGx Berlin

• Rachel Glennerster's podcast episode on 80,000 Hours explores market-shaping incentives in global health and climate change. She discusses how innovative financing mechanisms, such as advance market commitments, can encourage the development of vaccines and other essential health products. By guaranteeing a market, these incentives reduce risks for pharmaceutical companies, leading to more affordable and accessible solutions in low-income countries. Glennerster also highlights the importance of evidence-based approaches in designing these interventions to ensure they effectively address public health needs. (Our previous newsletter covered this topic in more detail.)

• Updates from Climate Change Fund grantees by Founders Pledge: updates on recent achievements of grantees working on climate solutions! Actual progress, among others in areas like clean energy, carbon removal, and advocacy for stronger climate policies. The grantees have been instrumental in scaling impactful initiatives, influencing policy changes, and driving innovation in sustainable practices. These efforts collectively contribute to mitigating climate change and promoting environmental sustainability on a global scale. For more detailed updates, you can visit the Founders Pledge page.

• A new book on EU Food Law by Hanna Schebesta and Kai Purnhagen is out now, which might be helpful for people working on food systems change.

• Soemano Zeijlmans from Effective Environmentalism has contributed a chapter on the Dutch water authorities and climate adaptation to the book Water Emergency: Case Studies and Global Perspectives, published by the UN-mandated University for Peace. Other topics include water availability, contamination, and boundary disputes.

📰 What we’ve been reading and listening to

Some things we think deserve more attention.

1. 🎯 The Science Based Targets Initiative’s take on carbon credits, as covered by Chris Lang.

2. 📃 The US Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 is stirring debate among environmentalists. Some argue it allows easier construction of renewable energy projects, whereas others predict that it leads to construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure, like LNG terminals.

   1. In favour: Sam Matey from The Weekly Anthropocene

   2. Against: Bill McKibben from The Crucial Years

3. ☢💧 Joran Buwalda’s series on neglected climate solutions. This edition’s topic is nuclear ships and hydrogen planes: science fiction or realistic solutions for zero emissions transport?

4. 🏢 “How do we bridge the corporate climate gap?” by Client Earth’s Laura Clarke. This post addresses a topic we mentioned earlier on in this newsletter: philanthropy and pledgers. How do we bridge the corporate climate gap between pledges and reality?

5. 🔍 “Climate policies that achieved major emission reductions: Global evidence from two decades” by Stechemesser et al. in Science. Which types of policies have led to carbon emission reductions in practice?

6. ♒ “Welcome to the age of non-stationarity” by Jonathan Tonkin from Predirections. River management needs to take into account that the flow and variance of rivers isn’t stable, especially under climate change.

7. 🔥 “How big are global wildfires this year?” by Hannah Ritchie

👩‍💼 Job openings

We are highlighting some outstanding opportunities to make a positive difference with your careers. These positions are vetted by Effective Environmentalism and 80,000 Hours and are not sponsored.

International/remote

• Clean Air Task Force is hiring a Program Coordinator, Nuclear and Fusion Energy. In this role, you'll support CATF’s strategic initiatives to advance nuclear and fusion energy as vital components of our low-carbon energy strategy, plan, organise, and execute project activities to ensure timely delivery of project milestones, conduct research on nuclear energy technologies, regulatory frameworks, and market trends to inform team strategies, and much more.

Europe

• Opportunity Green is looking for a Scientific Officer to help develop recommendations for policymakers regarding the use of green ammonia as a fuel for shipping. The work will involve scientific research and the development of legislative recommendations to ensure that the use of ammonia does not inadvertently worsen climate change or degrade the nitrogen cycle.

• Food Systems Lead and Principal Researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development

• Consultancy roles for Central and Eastern Europe and Germany at the Clean Air Task Force

Other

• High Impact Professionals has opened applications for the Fall 2024 round of their Impact Accelerator Program.

You can find more impactful environmental job openings at 80,000 Hours, or find careers specific to developing alternative proteins here.

We are grateful to our readers for giving feedback on the draft version of this newsletter. Any mistakes remain ours.

‍💹 Creating a market for climate innovations

We still need a lot of research, development, and innovation in clean technologies and climate adaptation to minimize climate damages, but innovation has been lacking in some crucial areas. Governments play a large role in financing and incentivizing innovations, and they have multiple tools at their disposal. In this newsletter, we explore the idea of market shaping: using the power of markets to reward innovation where patents or unregulated markets cannot.

The limits of patents and R&D grants

Market economies usually reward innovation through patents. This gives an innovator a temporary monopoly on using that innovation, so it can earn back the costs of innovation. Patents are a useful innovation incentive when the benefits of innovation are mainly private benefits to the consumer. For example, a company that invents a better immersion blender can earn back the resources it put into innovation as consumers are willing to buy it. Unfortunately, this system is flawed for (partial) public goods, like cleaner technologies and climate adaptation. The benefits of these solutions are public, so individuals often do not have enough incentive to purchase these products. As a result, companies have little incentive to invest in innovation that benefits the climate and environment.

Governments often aim to fill this gap by funding specific research or innovation projects, also called a push mechanism. Governments give research grants to universities or research groups, regardless of whether they are successful or not. This mechanism can be useful for open-ended basic research (when we don’t know what innovation we need), but it is also limited:

• Push funding doesn’t incentivize creating a product that consumers will want to adopt, especially if most of the benefits are public benefits.

• Push funding is paid out even if a research group is unsuccessful.

• The government cannot always know which researchers are best placed to deliver results.

• The government cannot always know which approach is best to address the innovation challenge.

Market shaping through pull mechanisms

To incentivize innovation in (partial) public goods like cleantech and climate adaptation, pull mechanisms may be an under-appreciated tool. Instead of paying for research inputs (like research staff and labs), a pull mechanism pays for the outputs (e.g. cleaner air-conditioning) and outcomes (e.g. reduced CO₂ emissions) of an innovation. This has numerous benefits:

• Firms are only paid if they deliver a successful innovation that can or is actually be adopted at scale. The government or philanthropic funder only spends money in case of success.

• Innovators themselves decide whether they are best-placed to work on an issue. They government doesn’t need to collect the expertise of all research labs, or decide which approach or technology will work best.

A pull mechanims can be as simple as a prize for a person or group to invent something that society needs. For example, the XPrize project will reward $100 million USD for best carbon removal idea demonstrated to work at scale.

A more advanced option is an Advance Market Commitment, or AMC for short. In essence, an AMC is a contract where a buyer (such as a government or philanthropic organisation) commits to purchasing a certain product at a given price once it becomes available. This creates a market for a product before it even exists, and therefore a financial incentive to invest in innovation.

AMCs have been successfully used in the past. The global vaccine alliance Gavi launched an AMC to promote the scale-up and adoption of pneumococcal vaccines. This has likely sped up the vaccine rollout by about 10 years, and the vaccine has already reached children in 60+ countries.

How can pull mechanisms be applied to climate breakthroughs?

Pull mechanisms like prizes or AMCs can also be applied to climate breakthroughs we need. Think of, for example:

• Rewarding the invention and adoption of climate-resilient crops, without trapping farmers in restrictive patents prohibited seed sharing.

• Producing and using clean cement and concrete, by rewarding clean production in government procurement contracts.

• Creating a market for green hydrogen, by committing to buy it once it becomes cheap.

• Rewarding the invention of a cleaner air conditioning unit, or promising to pay for the adoption.

Read more

This story is based on the research and work of the Market Shaping Accelerator at the University of Chicago.

• Read more on the Market Shaping Accelerator website

• “Market Shaping to Combat Climate Change”, book chapter by William Arnesen and Rachel Glennerster

• Rachel Glennerster about market shaping on the 80,000 Hours podcast

🇳🇱 Highlights from the Effective Environmentalism meetup at EAGx Utrecht

Effective Environmentalism hosted a meetup for our community members at EAGx Utrecht this month. We had fruitful discussions about how to help people find impactful careers, how to communicate our ideas to the wider environmental movement, and the relationship between environmentalism and global development. A warm welcome to our new readers from EAGx Utrecht!

💶 Effective Environmentalism is looking for funding

Effective Environmentalism is currently a volunteer-run initiative, but we would like to scale up our activities to more effectively grow a global community of people and organisations tackling environmental issues as effectively as possible. Financial support for 2 FTE would help us to devote more time to growing the field of effective environmentalism.

If you are a donor or work for a grant-making organisation, please get in touch.

📰 What we’ve been reading and listening to

• Taking a page from the electric vehicle playbook, and apply it to alternative proteins. (Daniel Gertner, Good Food Institute)
  Electric vehicles (EVs) are in a later stage of adoption than alternative proteins, despite agriculture and transport contributing equal shares of greenhouse gas emissions. The alternative proteins sector can learn from EVs by focusing on price and quality parity, get supportive public policies to enhance innovation, and secure robust public and private funding to scale up.

• How to decarbonise the world’s cement. (Hannah Ritchie, Sustainability by Numbers)

  • Option 1: Use less cement, and add other ingredients to concrete

  • Option 2: Carbon capture and storage (CCS)

  • Option 3: Use a different source rock

• An overview of climate research in effective altruism (Greer Gosnell, Rethink Priorities)

• Some consequences of solar on the electricity markets (GEM Energy Analytics).
  The highest value for solar power is often no longer when production is highest. In the morning and evening there is less solar generation, but prices are higher.

• The UN policy efforts by ProVeg

• The economic commitment of climate change. (Kotz et al.)
  Climate damages outweigh the costs to limit warming to 2°C by sixfold. Most impacts are in countries with lower incomes, and fewer historical emissions.

🔔 Short news

• Denmark will impose the world’s first carbon tax on agriculture

• 80% of environmental professionals in the UK have concerns about the credibility and transparency of carbon offsetting schemes.

👩‍💼 Job openings

We are highlighting some outstanding opportunities to make a positive difference with your careers. These positions are vetted by Effective Environmentalism and 80,000 Hours and are not sponsored.

International/remote

• Technical Lead, Fusion Technology at UN International Atomic Energy Agency (Deadline: 1 August 2024)

North America

• Director of Partnerships at Breakthrough Energy

• Senior Associate, Development Operations at Clean Air Task Force

• Several positions related to community, innovation, and policy at The Good Food Institute

• Manager, Energy Transition at Rockefeller Foundation

• CEO, North America at The School for Moral Ambition (Deadline: 17 August 2024)

• Various jobs in nuclear fusion

Europe

• Manager, Offshore Wind at The Carbon Trust

• Innovation Associate, Electric Systems at The Carbon Trust

• Senior Researcher, Climate Change and Risk Programme at Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Deadline: 1 August 2024)

You can find more impactful environmental job openings at 80,000 Hours, or find careers specific to developing alternative proteins here.