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Geos Institute helps communities build resilience in the face of climate change

Great progress on Climate Ready America as we head into the holidays!

From the December 2022 Cornerstone Network Email

The past few months have been a whirlwind as we worked to bring our Climate Ready America system of climate services to fruition! And, because of that effort, I have much to report:

Support from Federal Agencies

In October, we worked with the NOAA Climate Program Office to host a gathering of federal climate resilience programs ahead of the National Adaptation Forum. In this half-day workshop, agencies helped identify the challenges of getting federal money to the ground where it is needed most.

To close out the day, we shared the details of Climate Ready America. Across the board the agency representatives agreed that Climate Ready America would help to more effectively deploy their climate programs and better understand emerging needs in communities.

After almost two years of working to develop this initiative from the ground up, we are energized by the strong support from the federal agencies. It reinforced that we understand what is needed and that Climate Ready America will meet that need.

Securing Funding

Since this workshop, we are continuing conversations with congressional offices, federal climate programs, and practitioners to find funding to get pilot Climate Innovation Centers launched in Indiana, Utah, Georgia, New Hampshire, and possibly Oregon.

Our team prepared comments to the Environmental Protection Agency asking for an investment of just 5% of the funding in their $27 billion dollar Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to build Climate Ready America. With this investment we could build a topflight climate services system that ensures all US communities can get the climate help they need no matter their size, location, or wealth for at least five years.

Other Progress

I have been honored to serve this past year on the Climate Resilience Subcommittee for FEMA’s National Advisory Council. The Council recently delivered its recommendations to Administrator Criswell and I am hopeful that they will help FEMA provide greater leadership in the effort to build a climate resilient nation.

We have also been meeting with the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House to help them develop recommendations for climate services. I recently participated in a listening session they hosted with climate service leaders to gather input for their recommendations. We are hopeful they will call a coordinated public/private climate services structure as the FEMA recommendations have.  

You!

I wasn’t kidding when I said that it’s been a whirlwind of activity these past few months. Your financial support as we have done this work has made all the difference because most foundations and government funding programs do not support projects of this size and complexity. Thank you so much. We appreciate your partnership more than you can ever know.

Your ongoing support is needed if we are to maintain our momentum and build on the great progress we have made in 2022. Take a look at our end of year Look Ahead publication, which includes information about our plans for 2023 and how you can make a contribution to support those efforts. We appreciate all contributions and work hard to make the very best use of them.

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