Climate Policy Initiative (CPI)

Finance Needs |Methodology,” Climate Policy Initiative. May 2024. Accessed January 17, 2025. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Assessing-Top-Down-Climate-Finance-Needs.pdf [/note]

The organization has a reach around the world, operating from principal offices in Washington, D.C. and London, England, with affiliate offices in Brazil, India, and Indonesia. ⁵ The group oversees several programs, maintains a staff of over 150 people worldwide, and participated in 100 projects in 2022. ⁶

CPI has established additional entities it maintains under the Climate Policy Initiative umbrella organization, including Climate Policy Initiative India Private Limited, Climate Policy Foundation, and Yayasan Cendikia Perebahan Iklim Indonesia (CPI Indonesia). ⁵

Partners

Climate Policy Initiative has partnered with dozens of public and private sector organizations and companies, as well as government entities, including Green Finance Platform; ⁷ Allianz; Africa Finance Corporation; Bloomberg New Energy Finance; Danish Ministry of Energy, Utilities and Climate; Deutsche Bank; European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; the London School of Economics and Political Science; UN Environment Programme; Penn Institute for Urban Research; University of Oxford; and the World Resources Institute. ⁸

Financial Supporters

Climate Policy Initiative receives funding and grants from organizations and companies around the world. The MacArthur Foundation, the 12th largest foundation in the United States in 2014, allocated $7.25 million to CPI over the period from 2016 through 2022 for “climate solutions.” ⁹

In 2022, Climate Policy Initiative Indonesia received $208,270 from the Ford Foundation, one of the largest foundations in the world for since its formation in 1936. ¹⁰ The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, one of the wealthiest grantmaking foundations, granted CPI $14.965 million over the 2016 through 2022 period. ¹¹ ClimateWorks Foundation, founded by William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the McKnight Foundation, allocated $4.148 million to CPI from 2016 through 2023 for various programs, including sustainable finance, power, forests and land use, and cooling. ¹²

The Rockefeller Foundation granted Climate Policy Initiative $3.764 million over the 2015 through 2019 period. ¹³ The Gordon E. and Betty I. Moore Foundation, a generous supporter of left-of-center environmentalist organizations, allocated $528,000 in 2020 ¹⁴ and $203,000 in 2019 ¹⁵ to CPI. Climate Policy Initiative received a grant from the Stichting IKEA Foundation totaling $1.5 million for a CPI project on an India PURE Finance Facility. ¹⁶

Opposition to Nuclear Energy

A May 2024 CPI analysis of “climate finance needs” stated the group opposes the use of nuclear energy as a climate policy solution: “In addition, some needs estimates included in the original sources refer to technologies that we do not consider to be climate solutions (e.g., fossil fuel generation, nuclear power).” ¹⁷

A September 2023 “net zero” finance analysis produced by CPI warned that investment in nuclear energy crowded out financing for weather dependent energy systems. “It is better that we make sensible choices now rather than invest in assets that quickly become unusable,” claimed the report. “For example, a large investment in nuclear power post-2030 could strand high-carbon power plants and renewables.” ¹⁸

Nuclear power plants produce no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions, and as of 2021 accounted for 19 percent of American electricity production—the largest source of zero carbon electricity in the United States. ¹⁹ An October 2018 proposal from The Nature Conservancy noted that zero-carbon nuclear plants produced 7.8 percent of total world energy output and recommended reducing carbon emissions by increasing nuclear capacity to 33 percent of total world energy output. ²⁰

People

Thomas C. Heller

Thomas C. Heller, a climate policy lawyer, academic, and advocate, founded Climate Policy Initiative in 2009 and worked as its executive director from 2009 through 2016. He then sat as chairman of the board and worked as strategic senior advisor. ²¹ Prior to founding CPI, Heller was a professor at Stanford University for over 30 years where he focused on international legal studies, economic development, and the performance of legal institutions. He has particular interest in policies of other governments, including China, India, Brazil, and Mexico, and other emerging markets. ²²

Heller currently works as director of Stanford University’s Sustainability Finance Institute at the Precourt Energy Institute. He is a regular guest of the World Affairs Council, the Clinton Global Initiative, and the World Economic Forum. ²¹ Since 2010, he has sat as vice chair of the governing board of the Global Green Growth Institute, headquartered in Seoul, Korea. Heller has participated as lead author and a contributor to various reports that come out of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Beginning in 2008, Heller has been involved in directing Project Catalyst, an analysis project in support of the Copenhagen Climate process. ²² He also is a member of the international advisory council for the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice. ²³ He is a graduate of Princeton University and has a law degree from the Yale School of Law. ²²

Barbara Buchner

Barbara Buchner, originally from Austria, is the global managing director at Climate Policy Initiative. She was named one of the 20 most influential women in climate change ²⁴ and one of the 100 most influential people in climate policy. ²⁵ She directs CPI’s Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance (the Lab). She is a professor in practice for sustainable finance at the University of London SOAS Centre for Sustainable Finance, a program director of the Climate Change and Energy Program at the Australian National University, and is an advisory board member of the Barilla Foundation and the Schwarzenegger Climate Initiative. ²⁴