2019 Annual Report
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A LETTER FROM OUR
FOUNDER & CHAIRMAN
Dear Friends,
These are deeply uncertain times for all of us. We’ve witnessed an extraordinary year of climate progress led by activists demanding change across the world. Mother Nature spoke clearly with more extreme weather, capped by devastating wildfires in California and Australia. And then the coronavirus pandemic turned our world upside down.
We can’t say with certainty what comes next. But we can say that the desire for change remains strong. It was there before COVID-19 struck, in the young voices filling the streets in the global climate strikes in 2019. It was there before the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor reignited outrage at the systemic racism unjustly affecting people of color every day. And it’s there now, as people everywhere see millions unemployed, desperate, and demanding justice.
Our job is to seize this moment and empower people everywhere to take their future into their hands and together create a more just and sustainable world for us all.
With your support, in 2019, we trained over 4,500 new Climate Reality Leaders to lead this effort and help build momentum for a just transition from a global economy powered by dirty fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy. We’ve made the case and advanced other clean solutions such as regenerative farming, sustainable forestry, improved building efficiency, and more. And with your support, we’ve worked to bring new voices and communities to our trainings and campaigns, building an inclusive movement to ensure the transition truly is a just one.
Thank you for your friendship and support. We have real work ahead of us to ensure this transition and all of our progress continues in this new world. Thanks to you, I know we will succeed.
Thank you,
Al Gore
Founder & Chairman
OUR GOALS
At Climate Reality, we work to achieve three goals designed to accelerate a just transition to clean energy and help create a more equitable and sustainable future for us all.
THE CLIMATE REALITY LEADERSHIP CORPS
You want to make a difference. We’ll show you how.
Real change doesn’t happen by itself. It happens because regular people – students, parents, workers in every field – take their future into their own hands and pull on the levers of power.
That’s why, back in 2006, former Vice President Al Gore created what became the Climate Reality Leadership Corps. To empower people of all ages and walks of life to make a difference in our planet’s future.
Since then, we’ve seen Leaders help shift their towns to 100 percent renewable electricity. We’ve seen Leaders fight pipeline developments in frontline communities. We’ve seen Leaders organize climate strikes bringing hundreds of thousands into the streets. The list goes on.
In 2019, we held four trainings in cities and regions where activists could be instrumental in local battles with national significance: Atlanta, Brisbane, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Tokyo. Acknowledging that climate change is affecting low-income communities first, three of these trainings featured special outreach and scholarship initiatives to welcome members of frontline communities personally touched by fossil fuel pollution and climate impacts.
Together, these events welcomed over 4,500 new Climate Reality Leaders to our global community of change-makers, helping us build a more powerful and diverse movement to win.
Leaders trained
represented
"When we are united, we are unstoppable." Ever wondered what it’s like to attend a Climate Reality Leadership Corps training? Here's what the experience is like, straight from Climate Reality Leaders.
THE CLIMATE REALITY LEADERSHIP CORPS
You want to make a difference. We’ll show you how.
Real change doesn’t happen by itself. It happens because regular people – students, parents, workers in every field – take their future into their own hands and pull on the levers of power.
That’s why, back in 2006, former Vice President Al Gore created what became the Climate Reality Leadership Corps. To empower people of all ages and walks of life to make a difference in our planet’s future.
Since then, we’ve seen Leaders help shift their towns to 100 percent renewable electricity. We’ve seen Leaders fight pipeline developments in frontline communities. We’ve seen Leaders organize climate strikes bringing hundreds of thousands into the streets. The list goes on.
In 2019, we held four trainings in cities and regions where activists could be instrumental in local battles with national significance: Atlanta, Brisbane, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Tokyo. Acknowledging that climate change is affecting low-income communities first, three of these trainings featured special outreach and scholarship initiatives to welcome members of frontline communities personally touched by fossil fuel pollution and climate impacts.
Together, these events welcomed over 4,500 new Climate Reality Leaders to our global community of change-makers, helping us build a more powerful and diverse movement to win.
Leaders trained
represented
On the first evening of the Atlanta training, Climate Reality partnered with Repairers of the Breach, Center for Earth Ethics, and the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church to hold an interfaith mass meeting that explored how diverse faith traditions and common values compel us to respond to the climate crisis and inspire us to act for a more just and sustainable world. The service was open to the public as well as training attendees — and we were thrilled to welcome nearly 2,000 people to this inspiring event.
Vice President Gore, Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II, and Reverend Dr. Raphael G. Warnack, the Senior Pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, were joined by local faith leaders to gather inspiration from religious texts, bear witness to the injustice of the climate crisis, and rededicate our communities to transformative action.
Climate Reality CHAPTERS
Winning together.
Americans want a just and sustainable future – and they’re willing to fight for it. With or without the White House.
We see it every day in our over 150 Climate Reality chapters all across the country. Chapters bring activists of all stripes together to organize, build, and launch winning campaigns to halt the fossil fuel agenda, fight for justice in frontline communities, and move the needle on public opinion and energy policy.
In 2019, we saw the difference chapters make. Over 7,500 activists in our community and Campus Corps chapters in 38 states marched. They gathered signatures. They met with civic, school, and business leaders. They reached out to friends and neighbors. Most important, they kept the movement going, growing, and winning.
CLIMATE REALITY
CHAPTERS
IN FOCUS
Campus Corps chapters recruit college students to fight for climate action, starting right outside their door. With support, training, and resources from Climate Reality, young activists in 37 Campus Corps chapters push their college or university to break ties with fossil fuels and embrace practical clean energy solutions across the school.
The result is a growing body of change-makers who are not only making a difference on campus today, but cutting their teeth as activists and building the know-how and skills to become movement leaders tomorrow.
Campus Corps chapter highlights from 2019 include welcoming our first chapter at a historically black college or university, North Carolina Central University. And at Doane University in Nebraska, our chapter introduced a divestment resolution, ran a student campaign in support of the resolution, and celebrated the resolution’s approval by the Doane University Board of Trustees in May.
Climate Speakers Network
Community voices have a story to tell. We help turn up the volume.
If we’re going to leave fossil fuels behind and solve the climate crisis, we’ve got to listen to the people seeing the devastation right outside their window. Because all too often, the families breathing in coal dust and communities hit hardest by rising seas and climate-fueled hurricanes are just left out of the conversation on solutions.
The Climate Speakers Network (CSN) aims to change that. Launched in 2015, CSN works to build a more inclusive climate movement where all communities know what the crisis means for them and have a voice in how we solve it.
To do it, CSN trains faith and environmental justice leaders to use the power of their own story to share the reality of the crisis in their community and inspire their friends, colleagues, parishioners, and more to act.
GLOBAL SHAPERS
Creating catalysts for climate action.
Founded by the World Economic Forum, the Global Shapers Community is a network of young world-changers committed to tackling the great challenges of our time, from environmental degradation to clean water access for all.
Thanks to the generous support and partnership of Rosamund Zander, we train these inspiring individuals to connect climate issues with key fights like hunger and social justice. We also help Shapers hone their communications and organizing skills to mobilize their communities for climate action and win.
Through these trainings – held at Shaper events around the world – we’re helping young leaders gain the skills to turn passion into real results. Many Shapers then train as Climate Reality Leaders to deepen their understanding of the crisis and build their advocacy and organizing skills even further.
The results speak for themselves. Since attending our trainings, Shapers have tackled illegal wood cutting and deforestation in Armenia, documented lives in communities in the Brazilian Amazon, developed an online tool to help consumers calculate the environmental impacts of their fashion choices, and so much more.
Climate Reality’s work alongside the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers is made possible by the generosity and partnership of Climate Reality Board Member Rosamund Zander.
24 Hours of Reality: Protect Our Planet, Protect Ourselves
The good news is that we’re hearing more and more about the climate crisis in the media today than ever before. The not-so-good news is that so much of it is noise, leaving people feeling confused about what’s really happening and what we can do.
So how do you make sure the truth breaks through all the noise?
With a good old-fashioned conversation, live and face to face.
So on November 20–21, we held a global conversation on the truth of the climate crisis and how we solve it: 24 Hours of Reality: Truth in Action.
For one full day, Vice President Gore and Climate Reality Leaders led public presentations and conversations on our changing climate in schools, community centers, offices, and more, with events reaching across all 50 US states and all seven continents (even Antarctica).
Truth in Action conversations gave people the chance to hear the truth of what’s happening to our planet, in person and from a friend, neighbor, colleague, or trusted community voice. Just as important, these conversations also gave many the chance to learn how to use their vote, their voices, and everyday choices to make a difference.
To help, we created easy-to-use talking points on the crisis and how we solve it targeting a range of audiences from medical professionals to parents that audience members could download and use to continue the conversation in their own lives. Plus, for every person who joined our email list, we planted a tree with our partner One Tree Planted, enabling audiences to start taking action before they even left the event.
Branch Locations
AFRICA BRANCH
Johannesburg, South Africa
672 Climate Reality Leaders
KEY RESULTS
-
- Mobilized public support and influencer pressure to help successfully pass a carbon tax in South Africa.
- Led the Action 24 program to strengthen government and public participation in advancing decarbonized sustainable and inclusive development in South Africa, including training government officers and legislators.
- Played a leading role in the Zero campaign, with a coalition of NGOs, CSOs, and volunteers from across Africa calling on the African Development Bank to be 100 percent transparent and to switch to 100 percent renewable energy.
- Worked with provincial governments in Gauteng, Kwazulu-Natal, Limpopo, and Western Cape provinces to promote clean energy transition.
AUSTRALIA BRANCH
Melbourne, Australia
1,537 Climate Reality Leaders
KEY RESULTS
-
- Held a successful Climate Reality Leadership Corps training for over 700 new Climate Reality Leaders.
- Launched a collaborative grant scheme to help Climate Reality Leaders working on projects focused on these themes.
BRAZIL BRANCH
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
591 Climate Reality Leaders
KEY RESULTS
-
- Branch Director Alfredo Sirkis spearheaded coordination of subnational efforts to implement Brazil’s NDC at the state level, with representatives for 12 state governments committing to join.
- Ran an education campaign in Rio de Jainero schools to teach over 5,000 students and train over 300 teachers on climate science and solutions.
CANADA BRANCH
Montreal, Canada
1,022 Climate Reality Leaders
KEY RESULTS
-
- Continued a Community Climate Hub program mobilizing activists to build public support for renewable energy in 20 municipalities across the country.
- Strengthened the National Climate League program, where Hub members and citizens around the country collect data on climate indicators to encourage municipalities to make stronger commitments on climate.
CHINA BRANCH
Shenzen, China
875 Climate Reality Leaders
KEY RESULTS
-
- Trained influencers as Climate Speakers in Shenzen in October.
- Brought Climate Reality CEO and President Ken Berlin to judge Shanghai Environment and Energy Exchange’s Green Carbon Award.
EUROPE BRANCH
Vienna, Austria
1,668 Climate Reality Leaders
KEY RESULTS
-
- Focused on the need for many European countries to make the shift away from coal, the branch helped organize and support events in various regions, including panel discussions in Romania and Poland, and the Conference on Climate Communications in Slovakia, attended by 500 government officials, citizens, and stakeholders.
- Formed a partnership with the Sziget Festival, one of the largest cultural festivals on the continent. Through this partnership, Climate Reality Leaders gave 14 presentations and engaged hundreds of individuals on the European National Energy and Climate Plans. Leaders also gave a mainstage presentation on climate for up to 15,000 people.
INDIA BRANCH
New Delhi, India
578 Climate Reality Leaders
KEY RESULTS
-
- Trained 714 teachers to serve as trusted messengers and educators on climate change and sustainable development in their communities, and hosted an International Education Conference for more than 500 participants from nearly 30 countries.
- Planted 100,000 trees to offset carbon emissions.
INDONESIA BRANCH
Jakarta, Indonesia
296 Climate Reality Leaders
KEY RESULTS
-
- Trained students, government officials, and NGO leaders on the climate crisis.
- Held a youth leadership camp focused on climate action for 60 young people, featuring a screening of An Inconvenient Sequel and a conversation with the country’s special envoy for climate change.
MEXICO AND LATIN AMERICA BRANCH
Mexico City, Mexico
1,317 Climate Reality Leaders
KEY RESULTS
-
- Used popular media to raise awareness and educated media voices on covering the crisis effectively by developing a climate manual and hosting a training for journalists.
- Organized and ran workshops for government officials, corporate employees, and university students to better understand climate science and solutions.
PHILIPPINES BRANCH
Quezon City, Philippines
608 Climate Reality Leaders
KEY RESULTS
- - Built for the future with a new host and partner.
Climate Reality In Japan
764 Climate Reality Leaders
KEY RESULTS
-
- Held a successful Climate Reality Leadership Corps training for 766 new Climate Reality Leaders.
- Engaged Climate Reality Leaders through opportunities like 24 Hours of Reality.
CLIMATE REALITY
BRANCH
IN FOCUS
Goal 3:
Accelerate the Transition to a clean energy economy
Building a More Inclusive Movement
How can we ensure the clean energy revolution is a just one that leaves the inequities and unequal burdens of the fossil fuel economy behind?
By building a bigger, broader, and more inclusive movement to drive it. By ensuring those living on the front lines of the climate crisis and suffering the worst of fossil fuel pollution have a decisive voice in what comes next. By providing fossil fuel workers green careers with a future, so no one is left behind in the new economy.
For years, our CSN and partnership initiatives have worked to expand the climate movment beyond traditional green constituencies. In 2019, we took the next step with an ambitious new effort to work alongside and support grassroots groups in the Southeast US and beyond fighting for environmental justice in their communities. Part of this effort was listening to hard truths about what communities actually need and how the movement has to change, learning from their experience and wisdom.
Part of this effort also involved launching a scholarship program to support individuals in frontline communities to train as Climate Reality Leaders and develop the skills and network to make an even greater impact in their fight for justice. Over the course of the year, the program welcomed:
The result is a movement growing far beyond traditional green constituencies, a movement that looks like and speaks for all the communities we call home. A movement with the numbers and power to win.
100% COMMITTED
We don’t need the White House for a clean energy revolution. Our 100% Committed activists are proving it every day.
Through the campaign, Climate Reality Leaders and chapter activists build pressure on local governments, businesses, and academic institutions to commit to transitioning to 100 percent clean electricity.
Once a partner has the made the commitment, activists often work with them to develop a roadmap to 100 percent clean energy, with an emphasis on renewables, that considers the needs and lives of the local community and can win broad support from all constituencies.
Through this approach, we’ve not only helped dozens of universities, businesses, and local governments become leaders in climate action, but also empowered people across the US to take their energy future into their own hands.
and municipalities
100% committed
running campaigns
BUILDING
COALITIONS
TO WIN
Global change starts with local wins. It’s a philosophy at the heart of
two ambitious partner efforts working for just energy transition in the Ohio River Valley
and in counties across the US.
FIGHTING PETROCHEMICALS IN THE OHIO RIVER VALLEY
With the generous support of the Heinz Endowments, in 2017, we began building a community of activists in Pennsylvania and the Ohio River Valley, training over 1,300 new Climate Reality Leaders in Pittsburgh.
In 2018, we mobilized many of these Leaders in a wide-ranging effort to raise awareness of the dangers of petrochemical developments in the Ohio River Valley and build popular support for halting the industry in its tracks.
This effort continued in 2019 with 900-plus local Climate Reality Leaders and chapter activists in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky leading a grassroots movement fighting for the future of their communities and changing the conversation on petrochemicals in the face of powerful opposition.
Key Results:
COUNTY CLIMATE COALITION
In 2018, we began an exciting partnership with Santa Clara County in California to help county governments across the US slash emissions and embrace sustainability at every level. In 2019, our activists brought 15 counties in to join the County Climate Coalition, including the most populous county in the US, Los Angeles County. The significant commitments these counties are making – with LA County alone aiming to prevent over 47 million metric tonnes of CO2 emissions – send a signal to other local governments that energy transition is on – and it’s time for them to get on board. And with 51 chapters now targeting commitments from 66 county governments, we can see real progress coming.
Key Results:
DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS
At Climate Reality, digital communications are at the heart of everything we do to build a more inclusive and diverse movement and drive real change for climate solutions. Together, our wide-ranging content marketing, social media outreach, digital storytelling, and campaign initiatives combine to educate, inspire, and empower audiences to act at pivotal times.
Educate
We use a combination of accessible blogs, fact sheets, e-books, and video stories to help people of all backgrounds understand what’s happening to our planet and what it means for the people they love and the values they hold. Content highlights in 2019 include:
- Knowledge Is Power e-book on solar energy and activism, co-published with HGTV's Property Brothers co-host and solar energy advocate Jonathan Scott.
- The Climate Crisis and Your Health e-book on how the crisis is exacerbating health threats and what you can do.
- Climate Science Belongs in the Classroom fact sheet on science education
Inspire
More and more people know we need to solve the climate crisis. But not everyone knows how we’ll do it. Through wide-ranging video stories, social outreach, and blog posts, we point the way to a just and sustainable future and the tools in our hands to get there. Over the course of 2019, we shared 139 blog posts that together drew 2 million views, while our By the Numbers graphics series brought engaging stories of hope to thousands on Instagram and Facebook.
Empower
We give people the digital tools to turn awareness into action by demanding action on specific policy goals and driving larger cultural change. In 2019, our online outreach saw supporters take over 230,000 digital actions in Climate Reality campaigns for change and another 225,000 digital actions in coalition campaigns with movement partners. Highlights in 2019 include:
- People Over Petro in Southwest Ohio pressuring Governor DeWine to stop petrochemical buildout in the state
- We ❤ Truth publicly celebrated local meteorologists reporting the truth about the climate crisis, helping create a pro-science culture.
- Call it a Climate Crisis campaign called on major television networks to elevate the urgency of their climate coverage and call the climate crisis exactly what it is, generating nearly 100K petition signatures together with our movement partners.
Thanks in part to these efforts, we now share a message of urgency, solutions, and hope with to 1.5 million combined followers on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and have added 108K new email subscribers since January 1, 2019.
IN SUM
It takes a certain kind of person to look beyond the present, to face the climate crisis head on and say, “Yes, we can solve this.”
As president and CEO of Climate Reality, preparing and delivering this report fills me with a deep sense of pride.
But just as important, it fills me with tremendous gratitude that we have partners who can make this work happen. Partners who see the climate crisis transforming the Earth and believe another world is possible. Partners who believe that regular people can be the engines of change taking us to a just and healthy future.
Thanks to you, the shift to a clean energy economy is on, even in the face of new challenges and uncertainties presented by the pandemic now gripping the planet. Thanks to you, we are building a climate movement of many voices, cultures, and perspectives. A movement as diverse as the communities and world we call home.
Thanks to you, we are building a better tomorrow where the worst of the climate crisis is in the past and where our children can dream as we did. There is work to do and obstacles still to overcome, but thanks to you, we know we’ll win.
Ken Berlin
President & CEO
FINANCIALS
