The concept is quite simple: create a climate services system that supports local governments by strengthening existing climate services within each state, connecting those resources, and filling in the gaps.

Our goal is to create an effective system of climate services so that all communities, no matter their location, wealth, or size, can access the help they need to build climate resilience – both reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to climate impacts.

• Local Communities: The primary user of the support services made available through this program
• Climate Innovation Centers: Unique statewide entities that provide direct support to local communities by connecting them with climate service resources from state and federal government, academic institutions, and climate organizations (Learn more about these centers here)
• Regional Support Teams: Expert teams that support state level Climate Innovation Centers on issues, such as implementation finance, community engagement, social equity, climate science, and nature-based solutions
• National Strategy Team: Central organizing entity that coordinates between the Federal System and Regional Teams
• Federal System: Tools, resources, and experts within the federal agencies whose work intersects with climate resilience

Overview Summary

You can read more about how we envision this system will function in this document: Climate Ready America: What It Requires

Sign On Letters

• On July 25, 2023 we submitted comments to FEMA on the Community Disaster Resilience Zones (CDRZ) Act, where we encourage FEMA to develop an initiative that not only supports CDRZ communities, but eventually can also help build resilience in the remaining 99% of census tracts across the nation. 
• On December 5, 2022 we submitted comments to the Environmental Protection Agency on their Greenhouse Gas Reduction fund. Seventy organizations and individuals signed on in support of these comments.

To get announcements for future sign on letter efforts, sign up for our enews.

General Interest

To receive periodic updates on, and invitations to be involved with, the development of Climate Ready America, sign up here

Partnerships

Climate Ready America will be built through partnerships. If you have resources or thoughts about collaborations that could help develop this system, please contact Kim Adams (kim@geosinstitute.org).

Background & History

Our Geos Institute team has been working on this question of climate services since 2015 when we co-led an effort to create a Climate Adaptation Service Bureau. Unfortunately sidelined by anti-climate positions of the administration and Congress, that effort spawned the Climate Adaptation Registry and influenced the structure of our Climate Ready Communities assisted-do-it yourself planning model.  

With the transition in 2020 of federal leadership to those who understand the threat and urgency of the climate crisis, we turned our attention back to developing climate services nationwide. Since late 2020, we have:  

• Worked with adaptation practitioners across the field to develop the Climate Ready America concept, identify existing programmatic anchors, and chart next steps (See our original concept paper) 
• Convened a team of leading adaptation practitioners to develop ten guiding principles of such a system (see the press release here)
• Researched existing climate change service programs in all fifty US states  
• Began identifying possible funding and states to pilot Climate Innovation Centers
• Developed a detailed design of Climate Ready America