Climate and Community Institute

Climate and Community Institute The Climate and Community Institute (CCI) is a progressive climate and economy think tank. We work with movements and progressive policy makers to pass new policy, improve implementation, shift narrat...

Stick with us in 2026 for more bold ideas to make life more affordable while advancing climate justice to build a world that truly works for the working class. Follow us here on Bsky, sign up for emails at climateandcommunity.org, and subscribe to our Substack climatecommunityinstitute.substack.com

Supply Chain Solidarity: Lessons from the Lithium Frontlines - Climate and Community Institute Workers and organizers, representing different parts of the transportation supply chain, journey across Nevada to learn first-hand about the impacts of lithium mining for electric vehicle batteries.

📽️ In 2024, we brought a group of auto workers, Amazon delivery drivers, transit riders, Indigenous rights defenders, and organizers across the lithium and copper mines of Nevada. In 2025, we produced Supply Chain Solidarity, a film following the journey. climateandcommunity.org/research/sup...

Letting People Move - Climate and Community Institute Transportation policy represents a key tool to address both the cost of living and climate crises. In the United States, the shortcomings of today’s transportation system …

📔 In our suite of materials on diversifying the transportation system, policymakers can find concrete pathways to remake the transportation system, both reducing household expenses and combating climate change: eg, by shifting highway funds to public transit. climateandcommunity.org/research/let...

Jobs for More Mobility and Less Mining - Climate and Community Institute The urgency of eliminating emissions from the transportation sector–the number one source of U.S. carbon emissions–intensifies with every day of inaction. Some climate advocates believe that decarboni...

📔 There is an alternative to an electric vehicle in every garage. We modeled the potential net increase of 2.4 million jobs created by expanding transportation options—which would also bring down emissions, lower costs, and lessen the need for lithium. climateandcommunity.org/research/job...

After the Biden administration’s strong push towards electric vehicles as the major strategy to move away from fossil fuels, lithium demand skyrocketed in the United States. But the large-scale lithium extraction to realize that approach is not sustainable for the environment.

Despite a Blow at the Ballot Box, Voters Still Want Public Power Lessons from the Maine Public Power Campaign

📝 Our retrospective on the Maine Public Power campaign revealed that even though the campaign was defeated at the ballot box due to strong lobbying opposition by private utility companies, appetite for public power stayed the same. climatecommunityinstitute.substack.com/p/despite-a-...

Rising Electricity Prices Shouldn’t Mean Ripping Off Ratepayers Data for Progress and Climate and Community Institute's monthly snapshot of the widespread demand and pathways forward for climate action.

📊A poll by Data for Progress found that people are already certain that utility companies are to blame for unaffordable electricity. dataforclimateprogress.substack.com/p/rising-ele...

📰 As data centers expand across the United States, electricity rates are rising at unsustainable rates. In ABC News 10, Fellow @sevier.io discussed why ratepayers should not pay for the vast burden on the grid posed by rising demand from data centers. www.news10.com/news/rising-...

How to Lower Energy Costs: Break Up the Electrical-Grid Cabal Seven obscure regional transmission organizations control huge parts of the country’s electrical grid.

📰 So we propose concrete policy solutions to protect people from rising costs, shutoffs, and utility price-gouging and shift to a publicly owned grid. newrepublic.com/article/2031...

Overcharged: The Rules Of The Electricity Affordability Crisis Nearly a quarter of adults in the US—or over 52 million people—cannot pay their power bills.

📔 Electricity is extremely expensive, and decarbonization won't bring prices down in the short term. But the cause is our deeply unjust, privately-owned utility system, focused on making profits over providing access to clean, affordable, and reliable energy. climateandcommunity.org/research/ove...

In the run-up to November elections, skyrocketing electricity prices were a part of every major political conversation. Nearly a quarter of adults in the US—or over 52 million people—cannot pay their power bills.

Should the Government Just Own Offshore Wind Farms? A chat with with Johanna Bozuwa of the Climate and Community Institute.

📰 Executive Director Johanna Bozuwa spoke to Heatmap News about what a federal offshore wind authority would look like, its historical precedents, and why we need to build towards a “political appetite” for big, ambitious solutions. heatmap.news/plus/the-fig...

Without Offshore Wind, the US Will Continue to Drive Up Electricity Costs and Fall Behind on Decarbonization New CCI report proposes a “Moon Shot” for offshore wind

📈 Our data on offshore wind shows the US is in dire need of expanded offshore wind capacity. We need somewhere between 270–485 GW of offshore wind to decarbonize by 2050, but only about 50 GW is currently planned to be online. climatecommunityinstitute.substack.com/p/without-of...

A Federal Offshore Wind Authority: A Public Moon Shot for Offshore Wind We propose that a future administration establish a federal Offshore Wind Authority to supercharge buildout and deliver affordable electricity.

📔 Offshore wind can lower utility bills and drive decarbonization, but the Trump admin halted large offshore wind projects. We have a plan for a future admin to create a federal authority to supercharge buildout & deliver affordable electricity. climateandcommunity.org/research/off...

Could this city be the model for how to tackle the housing crisis and climate change? Vienna has a way to make affordable housing and combat climate change all at the same time. Now U.S. cities want in, and they're building their own green housing.

📰In NPR, our research showed how the US can learn from Vienna’s social housing model to finance, build, and maintain high quality housing in the face of the climate crisis. www.npr.org/2025/06/15/n...

Climate and Community Institute | Climate & Community Institute | Substack Climate and Community Institute (CCI) is a progressive climate and economy think tank. We work with movements and progressive policy makers to pass new policy, improve implementation, shift narratives...

📝 Our series on green industrial policy for social housing revealed how to transform the housing sector in the public interest & how and why we must leverage industrial policy and coordinate markets to create green, climate-resilient housing. climatecommunityinstitute.substack.com/t/green-indu...

Transforming the Housing Sector with Green Industrial Policy - Climate and Community Institute Read our series featuring labor, public sector, and green innovation experts on the need for a green industrial policy for housing: We Need a Green Industrial …

📔 Our work on green social housing put forward a new approach coordinating labor, manufacturing, capital providers, utilities, and residents to deliver affordable housing and retrofits at scale. climateandcommunity.org/research/tra...

🏠 Housing is one of the major places where people are feeling the affordability and climate crises together. Climate change is making housing even more costly with exploding utility bills, rising rent prices in the wake of disasters, and skyrocketing insurance premiums.

Critical minerals should not be stockpiled for military use The US is funnelling materials such as cobalt and graphite into national defence rather than new climate technologies

📰 In the FT, Global Systems and Policy Manager Lorah Steichen showed that the Pentagon stockpile will take up precious resources that could instead accelerate decarbonization through battery storage and electric buses. www.ft.com/content/42ab...

The $1 Trillion Pentagon Budget Will Make Its Emissions Higher Than the Entire Country of Ethiopia By Patrick Bigger and Lorah Steichen

📝 We did the math on the 17% Pentagon budget increase, which would likely raise its emissions to a level higher than the entire country of Ethiopia and cause billions of dollars in economic damages. climatecommunityinstitute.substack.com/p/1-trillion...

Mining for War: Assessing the Pentagon’s Mineral Stockpile - Climate and Community Institute The Pentagon is rapidly expanding its stockpile of the so-called “critical minerals” it deems essential for military industries. Many of these same materials—known as energy transition …

📔 As working people struggled to afford basics, the Trump admin increased the Pentagon budget to over $1T and began stockpiling critical minerals. These actions imperil the green transition, expanding weapon systems and US military presence across the globe. climateandcommunity.org/research/min...

Zohran Mamdani Is Proposing Green Abundance for the Many The New York City mayoral campaign of Zohran Mamdani is focused on lowering the cost of living. It can serve as a blueprint for progressives seeking to embed climate action in real improvements for wo...

📰 Meanwhile, Labor Director @batul.bsky.social pointed out in Jacobin that Mamdani’s whole campaign wasn’t just focused on cost of living—it was a climate platform, too. jacobin.com/2025/06/mamd...

New Yorkers Voted For Public Grocery Stores. How Would That Work? New Yorkers turned out big time to support Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani's plans to open public grocery stores. Here's why the proposal is so popular, and so viable.

📰 Polling we did with @dataforprogress.org showed that 66% of New Yorkers support the idea across bipartisan lines & coauthor @grocerynerd.bsky.social argued the idea is both popular and feasible, citing the model of the US military as an example. www.forbes.com/sites/errols...

New York City Voters Support Municipal Grocery Stores - Climate and Community Institute The rising cost of groceries has driven nearly 50 million people in the United States to skip meals, eat less, and trade down to lower quality …

📔 Zohran Mamdani’s campaign put forward a bold idea to lower food prices: city-owned grocery stores. We found that municipal grocery stores could bring down bills and subsidize supply chains with healthier options, good jobs, & positive environmental impacts. climateandcommunity.org/research/new...

Insurers Charge Low Credit Homeowners Twice As Much for the Same Policy In many cases, a low credit score is more expensive than high disaster risk

📝 @ngraetz.bsky.social explained research findings w/@consumerfed.bsky.social: homeowners w/low credit scores pay 2x as much for their insurance & it’s more expensive to have a low credit score than to live in a zipcode with a high disaster risk climatecommunityinstitute.substack.com/p/insurers-c...

Bay Area community will have to use California FAIR plan as rate hike looms The homeowners have been "non-renewed" and sent to the FAIR Plan, which covers only fire loss and can cost thousands of dollars more than private insurance.

📺 Fellow @ipenaranda.bsky.social demystified “FAIR plans” for CBS, state-enabled plans which are almost all majority-controlled by insurance industry representatives, for which we have proposed reforms so that states can actually provide affordable insurance. www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco...

Protection or Profit? Transformative Solutions to the Home Insurance Crisis CCI’s proposal to transform home insurance involves states creating entities, termed Housing Resilience Agencies (HRAs), to run the state’s housing risk-reduction work and home disaster insurance prov...

📔 The LA wildfires and Texas floods showed that time and again, the private industry will shore up profits when disaster strikes. Instead of remaining at the insurance industry’s mercy, CCI proposes a complete redesign of the home disaster system. climateandcommunity.org/research/pro...

Remaking the State for Green Economic Populism By Johanna Bozuwa and Patrick Bigger

📝 @jbozuwa.bsky.social and @pmbigger.bsky.social argued for remaking the state to plan key sectors of the economy, put forward policies for economic and environmental freedom, and provide universal programs rooted in solidarity. climatecommunityinstitute.substack.com/p/remaking-t...

Opinion | Biden Left Us With a ‘Prius Economy.’ It’s Time for Something Different. (Published 2025)

📰 In an op-ed in the NYT, CCI Strategic Co-Directors @aldasky.bsky.social and @triofrancos.bsky.social named GEP as the winning pathway for Democrats who should be “folding climate policies into an agenda that tackles the cost-of-living crisis.” www.nytimes.com/2025/01/07/o...

Green economic populism is a political framework that pushes for decarbonizing the economy in ways that rally a strong, durable coalition by actively lowering costs, building community and state capacity, and tackling wealth inequality.