Climate Action Campaign (San Diego)

History

The Climate Action Campaign was founded in 2015 as the lead group pushing for the Climate Action Plan for the City of San Diego. In 2016, the Climate Action Campaign opposed a ballot measure that would have expanded freeways and highways near San Diego. In 2017, it helped Solana Beach become the first city in San Diego County to adopt a Community Choice Energy (CCE) program. A CCE program entails the local governments spending tax dollars on energy sources, typically wind farms and solar panels, and then selling the energy created from those sources back to customers as an alternative to conventional utility companies. In 2020, the Climate Action Campaign campaigned for the San Diego Green New Deal Alliance. ³

Campaigns

San Diego Green New Deal

The San Diego Green New Deal is a “coalition of nearly 50 local businesses and organizations […] committed to ensuring the San Diego region achieves a Zero Carbon economy by 2035 […] and promote equity and justice for communities of concern.” ⁴

The campaign supports reparations for Black people and Native Americans, increasing the amount of high paying union jobs, taxpayer funded education, expanding the use of Community Choice Energy programs, and reducing the number of cars on the road. The coalition states that it was founded on the ideology that the world is “deeply rooted in white supremacy, hierarchy, and dominance with a cooperative, egalitarian, and explicitly anti-racist vision for our future.” ⁵

Climate Action Plans

Climate Action Plans (CAPs) are documents that local governments create in collaboration with the Climate Action Campaign to outline how they plan to address climate concerns in their cities. According to the campaign, they should cover a city’s emission levels and sources, emission reduction goals, and strategies to reduce emissions. ⁶

The campaign created a CAP Report Card to go along with the CAP that covers the biggest problems a city has, what the city needs to address, and how the city should go about doing so. ⁷The Climate Action Campaign wants CAPs to be legally binding so that advocacy groups can sue cities for failing to meet goals. The Campaign itself sued the City of San Diego for falling behind on its climate goals, and won the case, resulting in the City of San Diego being required to create specific annual targets and forcing the city to change its plans if it fails to meet its annual targets. ⁸

Social Justice

The Climate Action Campaign works to address left-wing social concerns, in addition to environmental ones, and proposes that social inequalities are the root cause of climate concerns. It supports left-of-center legislation and actions to address these issues, stating that “powerful people and interest groups have stood in the way of meaningful climate action in their pursuit of concentrated wealth and power.” ²The Climate Action Campaign also states that “widening racial, gender, and class inequality, and racist and patriarchal ideology […] [are] the greatest challenges of our time,” ² suggesting that climate concerns can only be addressed if these concerns are dealt with simultaneously. ²

Financials

According to its 2023 990 form, Climate Action Campaign reported a revenue of $1,508,688, expenses of $1,470,712, and total assets of $2,418,420. ⁹

According to its 2022 990 form, Climate Action Campaign reported a revenue of $1,145,308, expenses of $1,515,803, and total assets of $2,347,768. ¹⁰

Funding

As of 2025, Climate Action Campaign’s funders have included American Endowment Foundation, Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego, National Philanthropic Trust, Seattle Foundation, Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program, and Windward Fund. ¹¹