The Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (CCAC) is a global environmentalist policy advocacy and research organization that works to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It partners with state entities and non-governmental organizations around the world to push for environmentalist legislation and policy changes to slow the effects of climate change that it claims are caused by these greenhouse gases. ¹

Background

Founded in 2012 as a joint venture of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the governments of the United States, Canada, Sweden, Bangladesh, Ghana, and Mexico, Climate and Clean Air Coalition works to raise awareness of the climate-changing potential of methane, black carbon (soot), tropospheric ozone, and hydroflurocarbons (HFCs).  CCAC proposes that curtailing the emission of these “short-lived climate pollutant” (SLCP) gases would prevent hundreds of thousands of premature deaths. ²

CCAC has grown to partner with 80 nations worldwide, as well as dozens of non-governmental organizations including the World Bank, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), international aid group Oxfam, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), law firm EarthJustice, the Center for Clean Air Policy, and ClimateWorks Foundation. ^{3 4}

Activities

2030 Strategy and Methane Roadmap Action Program (M-RAP)

Climate and Clean Air Coalition-funded initiatives span the globe and are diverse, from emissions research in the Maldives and the Central African Republic, to methane and waste reduction plans in Jordan, Morocco, and Micronesia. In 2021 it proposed a plan, self-described as “ambitious,” to meet the Paris Climate Accords goals, keep global warming to within 1.5°C, and reduce methane and black carbon emissions by 40 percent and 70 percent respectively. ^{5 6}

As part of these efforts, it spearheaded the Global Methane Pledge in which member countries agree to reduce methane emissions to a level consistent with modeling that will keep global warming within the 1.5°C range. It is also formulating the Methane Roadmap Action Program (M-RAP), a series of policy assessments and proposals, which member countries can adopt to achieve these ends. ^{7 8}

CCAC Trust Fund

The CCAC Trust Fund provides support for its projects. The fund is supported by governments around the world, with Norway and Canada being its largest state contributors, each donating over $20 million since its inception in 2012. From 2012 through 2021, the United States gave over $18 million to this initiative. It also receives hefty funding from CCAC partner Global Methane Hub. The fund raised over $96 million between 2012 and 2021; CCAC states that its goal is to grow the fund to $150 million by the year 2030. ⁹

Clean Air Fund

CCAC is a partner of the Clean Air Fund, a grantmaking and research organization founded at the 2019 United Nations Secretary General’s Climate Summit. This group purports to fund environmentalist causes with the intention of improving health and economic wellness in the countries where it operates, which includes the United Kingdom, India, and the Eastern and Southeastern European regions. ¹⁰

Raising over $50 million in its initial years, Clean Air Fund was bolstered with another $30 million pledge from former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and London mayor Sadiq Khan, who announced their plan to back its Breath Cities project in June 2023. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies, is also special envoy to the U.N. Secretary General on Climate Ambition and Solutions. This initiative aims to promote cleaner air in urban areas through research, community influence campaigns, and legal policy changes. ¹¹

Sustainable Development in Africa

In 2022, CCAC published a study in conjunction with UNEP entitled Integrated Assessment of Air Pollution and Climate Change for Sustainable Development in Africa. The study used data modeling to observe three scenarios as predictors for the effect of climate change. The scenarios were based on a continuance of current policy trends under CCAC’s Supporting National Action and Planning on Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (SNAP), an implementation of 17 new policy changes, or a more ambitious proposal of 37 total changes, referred to as “Agena 2063.” ¹²

Some possible changes included the introduction of landfills to reduce trash-burning, “stringent vehicle emission standards,” and changes to cooking and fermentation processes to reduce methane emissions. CCAC’s models claim that its policies would prevent over 800,000 premature deaths from air pollution by the year 2063, as well as cutting carbon dioxide and methane emissions in Africa by 55 and 74 percent respectively. ¹³

Clean Air Catalyst

Clean Air Catalyst is a partner project of CCAC that aims to harness already-existing social justice initiatives and groups, with an emphasis on gender ideology, to fuel public outcry and activism around climate change. Claiming that low-and-middle income women suffer the effects of climate change more than other groups, this group has launched a pilot-city program which installs individual members or teams “responsible for implementing a gender strategy that includes reaching out to key stakeholders to ensure gender is mainstreamed” in the ideological fight for environmentalism. This program seeks to bring as many groups as possible under its influence by workshops and seminars, listing “women, youth, the urban poor, people with disabilities, the elderly, and feminist organizations” as targets, even though it acknowledges up front that many of the organizations it seeks out “do not work directly on air pollution.” ¹⁴

People

Rick Duke is co-chair of Climate and Clean Air Coalition and the deputy presidential envoy for climate in the Biden administration. Duke is also a White House Liaison, and a former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. During  Obama administration, he was deputy director for energy and climate, and later worked as special assistant to the president, developing the Climate Action Plan and setting emission standard targets for the Paris Climate Accords. He is former president of consulting firm Gigaton Strategies LLC. ^{15 16}

Peter Justice Dery is the co-chair of CCAC and the director of environment at the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation (MESTI) in Ghana. He is the former Head of Climate Change and Sustainable Development Policy at the same institution. ¹⁷

Martina Otto is the head of the secretariat of CCAC at UNEP, and is thus responsible for the oversight and administration of its trust fund. Otto previously worked as the head of the Policy Unit and Energy Branch of the same organization, and is a former consultant to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Prior to this, Otto was a researcher at the London-based Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development, and an attorney for the firm of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. ^{18 19}

1.  “The Climate and Clean Air Coalition.” CCAC. Accessed August 1, 2023. https://www.ccacoalition.org/content/climate-and-clean-air-coalition
2.  “The Coalition’s 2030 Strategy: Meeting the Moment.” CCAC. November 9, 2021. Accessed July 31, 2023. https://www.ccacoalition.org/sites/default/files/resources//CCAC-NOV2021-02A_2030-Strategy.pdf
3. “Non-State Partners.” CCAC. Accessed July 31, 2023. https://www.ccacoalition.org/content/non-state-partners
4. “State Partners.” CCAC. Accessed July 31, 2023. https://www.ccacoalition.org/content/state-partners
5. “Project Portfolio.” CCAC. Accessed July 31, 2023. https://www.ccacoalition.org/projects
6. “The Coalition’s 2030 Strategy: Meeting the Moment.” CCAC. November 9, 2021. Accessed July 31, 2023. https://www.ccacoalition.org/sites/default/files/resources//CCAC-NOV2021-02A_2030-Strategy.pdf
7. “Work Plan & Budget 2023.” CCAC. Accessed July 31, 2023. https://www.ccacoalition.org/content/work-plan-budget-2023
8. “Home.” Global Methane Pledge. Accessed July 31, 2023. https://www.globalmethanepledge.org/
9. “CCAC Trust Fund.” CCAC. Accessed July 31, 2023. https://www.ccacoalition.org/content/ccac-trust-fund
10. “Clean Air Fund.” CCAC. Accessed July 31, 2023. https://www.ccacoalition.org/partners/clean-air-fund
11. “Michael R. Bloomberg and Sadiq Khan Launch US$30 Million Breath Cities Initiative to Take Clean Air Global.” C40. June 26, 2023. Accessed July 31, 2023. https://www.c40.org/news/bloomberg-khan-breathe-cities-launch-clean-air-global/
12. UNEP, CCAC. “Integrated Assessment of Air Pollution and Climate Change for Sustainable Development in Africa.” CCAC. Accessed July 31, 2023.https://www.ccacoalition.org/sites/default/files/resources//AFRICAN_ASSESMENT_SDM.pdf
13.  UNEP, CCAC. “Integrated Assessment of Air Pollution and Climate Change for Sustainable Development in Africa.” CCAC. Accessed July 31, 2023. https://www.ccacoalition.org/sites/default/files/resources//AFRICAN_ASSESMENT_SDM.pdf
14. Moses, Elizabeth. “Putting Women at the Center of Clean Air Action.” The City Fix. April 11, 2023. Accessed July 31, 2023. https://thecityfix.com/blog/putting-women-at-the-center-of-clean-air-action/
15. “Co-Chairs.” CCAC. Accessed July 31, 2023.  https://www.ccacoalition.org/content/co-chairs
16. “Rick Duke.” Linkedin. Accessed July 31, 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-duke-a62bba/
17. “Co-Chairs.” CCAC. Accessed July 31, 2023.  https://www.ccacoalition.org/content/co-chairs
18. “Martina Otto.” Linkedin. Accessed July 31, 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/in/martina-otto-8086316/details/experience/
19. “Secretariat.” CCAC. Accessed July 31, 2023. https://www.ccacoalition.org/content/secretariat