Keeling Curve

Primary Project Category:

Secondary Project Category:

Name of Project:

Year Project Originated:

Project Summary / Description:

You've probably heard of Moneyball - the baseball story, in which data identifies undervalued players who have game-winning potential. At Climate Cabinet we're building Moneyball for Climate: We sort through America‚ 500,000 elected policymakers to identify the ones with the greatest climate impact. 

Here‚ why: climate change is an issue that‚ overwhelming, urgent, and complex - and the solution runs straight through state and local governments. Bloomberg research shows that state and local policies control 75% of the carbon reductions we need. But we're missing this opportunity: over 85% of climate funding goes towards federal action alone. 

That‚ why we built Moneyball for Climate: a systematic approach for prioritizing high impact local opportunities. We use data and technology to sort through the noise, finding critical, overlooked opportunities that solve climate change. 

Climate Cabinet was born in 2018, when I was back home in Houston and a local candidate reached out to ask for help writing a climate platform. The candidate was running in a high-profile race‚ so I was shocked to find out that no one was equipping her with the research she needed. 

But, it wasn't just this one candidate. It turns out, with 7000+ legislature seats around the country, support for these decisionmakers is falling through the cracks. 

After a year of interviewing policymakers, I built a database to compile the resources key players need to be effective, and began proactively getting climate platforms into the hands of people who could enact them.

Country or Countries of Operation:

Regions of Operations:

How Project Affects Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions:

State and local policymakers are key to tackling climate change. But, these leaders are often part-time, short-staffed, and under-resourced. Enter: Climate Cabinet Education. 

With 500,000 state and local elected officials across America, scaling up local climate leadership is a challenge of scale and coordination. To solve this problem, Climate Cabinet combines data science and policy expertise to find and support local leaders with big climate opportunities. Think of us as “climate policy staffer at scale” for local elected officials who need a climate plan that works for their community from Day One in office.

Best Estimate of GHG Avoidance/Reduction of This Project (Tonnes CO2 Equivalent/Year):

Sustainable Development Goals:

Impact on Underrepresented Groups:

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are a central priority at Climate Cabinet. We move these goals forward through three methods: internal program goals, data democracy, and job recruitment.

First, internal program goals. In Moneyball for Climate, we track - and surface - areas with low elected official diversity, high environmental justice burdens, and higher-than-average energy bills and disconnection rates. These, along with traditional energy metrics like MW of gas and coal, are what create our top picks for peak climate opportunities. 

Next, we have a strong commitment to data democracy. We share our Moneyball for Climate database with incredible local organizers - so that they can focus on their job instead of trying to hack together datasets. Data scientists are expensive - and we offer our services for free. 

Finally, we recruit from diverse sources. We participate in internship programs that intentionally recruit low-income students and students of color for fully-compensated internships. The paid/unpaid internship and experience gap for early-stage careers results in high early-career attrition in the climate community, and we actively are part of coalitions working to solve this. 

We also post job listings in a wide variety of sources. Our team is fully remote, and the geographic diversity of our team provides has broadened our perspectives and proved to be a huge asset.

Sub-Categories: