A brief on locally-led climate action for funders

The end of 2023 was the hottest on record: scaling back emissions is required for a liveable future. In addition, communities need to have the resources to implement solutions for adjusting to a treacherous and uncertain future. When communities do not have the ability to adapt, impacts – and thus displacement, violence, and cultural erasure – are amplified. In this brief, we outline how community self-determination can best support adaptation to the climate crisis.

Over the last century, oceans have been the canary in the coal mine for the climate crisis, with acidity rising by 25% and wreaking havoc on biodiversity up and down the food chain. Fish constitutes over half of the animal protein consumed in many coastal and small island countries, and fish populations are collapsing due to overfishing, rising ocean temperatures, and altered weather patterns. Decades of pollution, mining, drilling, and destructive tourist practices are destroying ocean ecosystems and the food sources and livelihoods of the coastal communities that work to protect these fragile ecosystems.

Learn more about how CLIMA partners are approaching ocean conservation and protection of biodiversity.

Grassroots movements are transforming the landscape of climate solutions globally, addressing the multiplicity of root causes and effects of the climate crisis in lasting ways.

As part of our learning and evaluation process, we employed an Outcome Harvesting methodology to learn how our grassroots movement partners are advancing systemic and policy change to address the climate crisis. We analyzed 65 grant reports from 19 of our grassroots partners between 2015 – 2021 and identified 254 outcomes (social and political changes) influencing 285 actors.

Read now to learn how grassroots movements advance policy change and build political will for implementing climate solutions. Grassroots movements are doing this by creating spaces for advocacy and social action, directly influencing policy and/or legal and court changes, influencing shifts in government practices, and stopping or rolling back environmentally destructive projects.

Read now to learn how grassroots movements advance systemic change by enhancing community participation, improving security and rights, and shifting underlying narratives that drive decision-making.