Rockefeller Pledges $70-Million to Combat Effects of Global Warming

The Rockefeller Foundation, in New York, has pledged $70-million to help cities and towns around the world prepare for the potentially damaging effects of climate change.

The five-year Initiative on Climate Change Resilience will seek ways to help people in poor neighborhoods develop ways to confront the potential for increased flooding, severe droughts, the spread of infectious diseases such as malaria and cholera, and other major disruptions.

“While climate change will affect all of us, it will affect every aspect of life for poor people in particular — the type of food they eat, where they live, the water they drink, and even their jobs,” Judith Rodin, Rockefeller Foundation’s president, said in a statement. “Climate change must be integrated into poverty-reduction work, urban planning and development, public health, and agriculture.”

One component of the foundation’s climate-change grant program will focus on Asian cities, where the population is growing fast and the rising sea levels caused by climate change could harm large numbers of people. Another focus is Africa, where droughts and changes in the growing season can affect agricultural practices.

In the United States, the grants will pay for the development of new ways to protect regions that could face increased hurricanes and wildfires.

The issue of global climate change is attracting increasing philanthropic dollars. The Doris Duke Charitable Trust announced in April a $100-million, five-year commitment to combating the problem (The Chronicle, April 19).

The Rockefeller effort, however, is the first major grant-making program to focus exclusively on confronting the outcomes of climate change and developing ways to adapt. Most other philanthropic efforts focus on exploring ways to mitigate global warming, such as seeking ways to reduce the carbon-dioxide emissions thought to contribute to climate change.

Says Vicki Arroyo, director of policy analysis at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a charity in Arlington, Va.: “This kind of funding program, especially in the developing world, which has such tremendous vulnerability and exposure to climate change, is a fabulous start.”

She adds, “Hopefully the projects that they are going to be developing on the ground will be good case studies for other parts of the world.”