Climate and Community Institute

Trump Is Threatening to Cut Transit Left and Right Donald Trump’s new transportation proposal will hurt transit funding in every single American state, undermining affordability across the board. From red states to blue states, and from drivers to non...

Here's the @jacobinmag.bsky.social where he breaks down exactly how Trump's proposals work and how much states stand to lose: jacobin.com/2026/02/trum...

Hello Houston Full Episode - March 3, 2026 YouTube video by Houston Public Media

ICYMI: Watch our Transportation and Policy Manager Emmett Hopkins on @houstonpublicmedia.bsky.social talking about how Trump's threats to cut transit funding will hurt both red and blue states: www.youtube.com/live/dCT9DSr...

Zohran Mamdani Wants to Build Housing. He Should Build Green. After his White House meeting last week, Zohran Mamdani has a tentative plan to build 12,000 units of affordable housing in Queens. It’s a chance to tackle the climate and affordability crises simulta...

A massive social housing investment in Queens could create modern green homes for the working class, spark green careers across construction sectors, and build resilient green energy networks to support the community. A triple win for housing, labor, & innovation.
jacobin.com/2026/03/mamd...

The Case for City-Led Housing Retrofits A policy memo by Julia Wagner jointly published with the Climate & Community Institute

In NYC, housing affordability hinges on housing quality & readiness for a changing climate. W/@nycpolicyforum.bsky.social, we lay out a framework for a public retrofit program to deliver whole home repairs at scale for both affordability and habitability nycpolicyforum.substack.com/cp/189267002

Affordability and Climate Action Don’t Have to be Opposites Centrist pollsters keep treating climate like a siloed issue. Voters know better.

"Green New Scam":The right blames the GND for everything from immigration to trade as an excuse to go all in on FFs, which will keep polluting the planet and destabilizing the economy. An agenda that tackles affordability and climate can win: climatecommunityinstitute.substack.com/p/affordabil...

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.

"Ratepayer Pledge": Trump admitted that the US grid can't power data centers as is, so they'll bring their own energy. But an uncoordinated, market-based approach makes people pay higher utility bills for private benefit: dataforclimateprogress.substack.com/cp/177588181

Trump’s Illegal Invasion of Venezuela Forebodes an Environmental Disaster Rebuilding Venezuelan oil production would produce new annual emissions higher than the carbon footprints of France, the UK, or Thailand

"Drill, baby, drill": Trump boasted about how much oil the US is getting fsince its illegal invasion of Venezuela in January. Doubling down on fossil fuels will create record amounts of pollution and make the world less stable. Read more here: climatecommunityinstitute.substack.com/p/trumps-ill...

During last night's SOTU, we heard that Dems and the "Green New Scam" are making working people's lives worse. But Trump's plans and promises are *actually* what's making life more expensive and more dangerous. Here are three reasons why:👇

Affordability and Climate Action Don’t Have to be Opposites Centrist pollsters keep treating climate like a siloed issue. Voters know better.

When voters are asked to rank abstract issues against each other, “climate” seems to lose to “cost of living.” But the real question is whether voters want policies that tackle the climate crisis while delivering material benefits. The evidence says yes. substack.com/home/post/p-...

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...