Reports
The Climate and Life Initiative publishes periodic reports that demonstrate the impact of our work, as well as white papers that result from our collaborations and conferences.
Over just a few short years, we've developed and expanded a new, donor-supported model to accelerate high-risk, high-impact research that informs solutions to the climate crisis.
Since our founding in 2016, we’ve invested $4 million in research. This led to an additional $32.5 million in new external funding—an impressive 7:1 return on investment.
We hope you enjoy this snapshot of our recent progress. Together, we’ve built something unique and exceptionally important, especially in these times.
The Center for Climate and Life advances climate research to help society understand and prepare for these changes.
As you’ll see in our impact report, published in April 2020, our unique model of funding innovative climate science is working. We’re accelerating discovery, multiplying our investments, and ensuring that our science informs actionable solutions.
The Center for Climate and Life supports novel, risky research to lead climate action. Representing nearly 120 climate and ocean scientists at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, we direct philanthropic support to fund their most promising, impactful science.
Between 2016 and 2018, we awarded to $2.1 million to 10 leading Columbia University scientists, quadrupled our research funding, and much more.
Read about these achievements in our 2016-2018 Biennial Report.
In May 2017, the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory held a forum in New York City to discuss how new advances in climate science can inform investments in specific sectors of the global economy.
An outcome of this collaboration between the scientific community and the investment industry is a white paper, “The Near-term Impacts of Climate Change on Investors.”
In the report, conference organizers and speakers explain how climate change affects investments and best practices for integrating scientific knowledge into climate-sensitive decisions.