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Want to use your gifts to help the climate? Here’s where seven climate advocates are donating.
Fighting for clean air and water. Accelerating the green energy transition. Centering economic and racial justice. Engaging future generations of climate innovators.
Nonprofits across the U.S. and around the world are tackling the problem of climate change in zillions of different ways. In recognition of the scope of their work, we at Heatmap are starting a new tradition for Giving Tuesday — asking some of the most prominent voices in the climate space where they would donate this year.
The answers they gave us are varied, exciting, and urgent, with a cause for every interest and concern. Learn how to donate or get involved with an effort close to your own heart, below.
What UPROSE does: Organizes the multiracial, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural population of Sunset Park, Brooklyn to promote sustainability and climate justice.
How you can support UPROSE: Get involved or donate here.
Where Yeampierre would donate this year: NYC Environmental Justice Alliance; NY Renews Climate; and Climate Justice Alliance.
Why: “All three of these organizations have a long and continued track record of shaping policy, base building, and operationalizing a just transition. All are frontline-led and center racial justice and equity in all aspects of their operations. All have changed the landscape and are central to decision-making on all things climate.”
What Generation180 does: Mounts public campaigns for electrification with relentless positivity.
How you can support Generation180: Donate here.
Where Wertz would donate this year: Hollywood Climate Summit.
Why: “This holiday season, I’d consider giving to Hollywood Climate Summit for their important climate communications work. Hollywood is an extremely powerful industry, and for the past four years, the annual Hollywood Climate Summit has served as an urgent call to action for the entertainment industry to address the climate emergency through a compilation of think tanks, workshops, and activities. The climate movement needs to change hearts and minds, and HCS is encouraging the entertainment community to help us achieve the cultural shift we need to advance an equitable, sustainable future.”
What the Indigenous Environmental Network does: Draws on the history of indigenous peoples to empower Native groups working to protect their homelands.
How you can support the IEN: Donate here or explore other ways to support the IEN.
Where White would donate this year:Tonatierra
Why: “We would love to spotlight the incredible work of Tonatierra. They are a family-based organization lifting up the grassroots from the local work on the ground to the United Nations. Sadly, they recently lost their co-founder, Tupac [Enrique Acosta].
“The work of Tonatierra in lifting up Indigenous communities over the past decades has been tireless and selfless. They fight for Indigenous Peoples community empowerment bringing together Indigenous people from the north and south in the fight for justice and human rights all within the framework of the protection of Mother Earth as we are all connected to the land.”
What the Rainforest Alliance does: Leverages business incentives to protect irreplaceable ecosystems — and the communities that rely on them.
How you can support the Rainforest Alliance:Get involved or donate here.
Where Katz would donate this year: Fundación Proyecto Tití and The Billion Oyster Project
Why: “Fundación Proyecto Tití works to stop deforestation and protect the cotton-top tamarin monkey. Also known as the tití, these one-pound primates are only found in the forests of Colombia, but deforestation is destroying their already diminished habitat. Only about 7,000 titís remain in the wild. The organization is effective in part because it works so well with the local community to protect endangered forests and replant degraded lands. The group has a U.S. sponsor, so all gifts are tax-deductible.
“The Billion Oyster Project is a growing New York-based conservation organization working alongside the Harbor School on Governor’s Island to clean up the New York estuary, once home to the largest number of oysters in the world. The Billion Oyster project not only grows oysters, [it] also helps everyone better understand the connection between clean water, biodiversity, and the food we eat. If Billon Oyster is successful — and they are well on the way — in the near future, all New Yorkers will have cleaner rivers and more wildlife thriving throughout the area.”
What SELC does: Defends the local environment in court, using the law to help move the U.S. South toward a more sustainable future.
How you can support SELC: Get involved or donate here.
Where Campaigne would donate this year: Memphis Community Against Pollution
Why: “Memphis Community Against Pollution has done some of the most impressive organizing around in its quest for environmental justice for Black communities in Southwest Memphis. The organization played David as it slayed the Goliath Byhalia crude oil pipeline, then worked successfully to force the closure of another facility that had been releasing toxic, cancer-causing pollution for more than four decades. MCAP has now focused its fierce attention on a climate behemoth: the quasi-federal utility TVA, which is proposing one of the largest methane gas buildouts in the country, a move that would lock the region into fossil fuels for decades to come.”
What Rewiring America does: Teaches U.S. homeowners about the tangible benefits of clean electricity.
How you can support Rewiring America: Get involved or donate here.
Where Young would donate this year: Community-based organizations like Baltimore’s Civic Works
Why: “Changing a handful of machines in our homes and driveways is one of the most important things you can do for the planet. The Inflation Reduction Act and climate philanthropists are accelerating this work at the national level, but for Giving Tuesday, we say go local. Community-based organizations with longstanding, personal connections and deep knowledge of the local landscape are often some of the best-positioned to advance electrification thoughtfully and equitably. This giving season, find an organization working to increase resiliency and improve the quality of life for their community by weatherizing low-income homes, providing financial assistance to install heat pumps, or advocating for local government action to help strengthen building codes and gain access to solar or EV charging.”
What the CATF does: Advocatesfor climate technologies to decarbonize the global energy system.
How you can support the CATF: Donate here or explore other ways to support CATF.
Who Shaheen would donate to this year: Western Resource Advocates, the Center for Applied Law and Policy, and ClearPath
Why: “We appreciate the work the following organizations are doing to advance effective, pragmatic solutions to climate change. In the U.S., we'd like to showcase Western Resource Advocates, which drives evidence-based solutions to the climate crisis, protecting and sustaining the environment, economy, and people of the interior West; the Center for Applied Law and Policy, which seeks to further innovation in environmental law and policy; and ClearPath, which develops and advances policies that accelerate innovations to reduce and remove global energy emissions.”
What RMI does: Brings cutting-edge research and analysis to business, governments, and the public to build a carbon-free future.
How you can support RMI: Explore ways to give here.
Where Singh would donate this year: Relp
Why: “Relp’s work not only addresses the pressing energy challenges in developing nations but also holds the potential to revolutionize the renewable energy landscape, forging a path toward a greener and more sustainable future for all. Their mission creates a ripple effect in the renewable energy sector, offering a way to scale renewable investments in regions that need them the most. Their comprehensive grasp of renewable energy markets combined with their ability to generate investment opportunities [that were] previously thought infeasible transforms what was once seen as unattainable into achievable milestones.”
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On congestion pricing, carbon capture progress, and Tim Kaine.
Current conditions:New Orleans is experiencing another arctic blast, with wind chills near 20 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday • Continued warm, dry conditions in India threaten the country’s wheat crop • Heavy rain in Botswana has caused widespread flooding.
Environmental groups filed their first lawsuit against the Trump administration on Wednesday, challenging Trump’s moves to open up public lands and waters to oil and gas drilling. Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Oceana, among others, are contesting the president’s executive order revoking Joe Biden’s protections of parts of the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans from oil and gas leasing. The groups claim that the president has the authority to create these protections but not to withdraw them — a right reserved for Congress — and notes that a federal court confirmed this after Trump attempted to undo similar Obama-era protections during his first term.
President Trump made his move to kill New York City’s congestion pricing program on Wednesday. In a letter to Governor Kathy Hochul, Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he was reversing the Department of Transportation’s approval of the scheme, citing the impacts on drivers and claiming the program violated federal statute. Trump declared it “DEAD” in a Truth Social post, where he also proclaimed that New York had been “SAVED” and closed with “LONG LIVE THE KING.” The Metropolitan Transit Authority, which runs the program and relies on funding from it, immediately challenged the decision in a federal court and said it would continue to operate the program “unless and until a court orders otherwise.”
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A sweeping annual report from BloombergNEF and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy has a number of hopeful and concerning stats about what happened in America’s energy transition last year.
The Good:
Chart courtesy of the Business Council on Sustainable Energy
The Bad:
The same BNEF report also paints a lackluster picture of clean hydrogen and carbon capture development, two technologies that should benefit from generous federal subsidies. The U.S. had just 79 megawatts of “green” hydrogen production capacity by the end of 2024, with plans to build 34.7 gigawatts in the coming years.
The hydrogen industry was in limbo last year as it awaited final rules for claiming the production tax credit. Green hydrogen is made from carbon-free electricity and water. But most hydrogen announcements in 2024 — some 77% — were for “blue” hydrogen, which is made from natural gas using carbon capture. And while there’s a growing pipeline of carbon capture projects, with plans to deploy the tech in new sectors like ammonia and chemical production, U.S. carbon capture capacity has remained unchanged since 2020.
In a press conference on Wednesday, Senators Tim Kaine of Virginia and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico detailed their plan to invalidate President Trump’s declaration of an energy emergency. In early February, the two introduced what’s called a “privileged joint resolution” to terminate the emergency declaration, a type of legislation that the Senate is required to vote on. “We’re going to force a vote, force everybody to declare where they are on this sham emergency declaration,” Kaine said. Kaine and Heinrich made the case that the U.S. produced more oil and gas last year than at any point in history, and discussed the many domestic manufacturing projects and jobs that President Trump’s war on clean energy has put under threat. The vote is expected next week.
Sweden’s Supreme Court threw out a class action lawsuit brought by Greta Thunberg and other activists against the nation for not doing enough to stop climate change.
And it’s doing so in the most chaotic way possible.
The Trump administration filed a rule change this past weekend to remove key implementation regulations for the National Environmental Policy Act, a critical environmental law that dates back to 1969. While this new rule, once finalized, wouldn’t eliminate NEPA itself (doing so would take an act of Congress), it would eliminate the authority of the office charged with overseeing how federal agencies interpret and implement the law. This throws the entire federal environmental review process into limbo as developers await what will likely be a long and torturous legal battle over the law’s future.
The office in question, the Council on Environmental Quality, is part of the Executive Office of the President and has directed NEPA administration for nearly the law’s entire existence. Individual agencies have their own specific NEPA regulations, which will remain in effect even as CEQ’s blanket procedural requirements go away. “The argument here is that CEQ is redundant and that each agency can implement NEPA by following the existing law,” Emily Domenech, a senior vice president at the climate-focused government affairs and advisory firm Boundary Stone, told me. Domenech formerly served as a senior policy advisor to current and former Republican Speakers of the House Mike Johnson and Kevin McCarthy.
NEPA has been the subject of growing bipartisan ire in recent years, as lengthy environmental review processes and a barrage of lawsuits from environmental and community groups have delayed infrastructure projects of all types. While the text of the pending rule is not yet public, the idea is to streamline permitting and make it easier for developers to build. In theory that would include expediting projects such as solar farms and clean energy manufacturing facilities; in reality, under the Trump administration, the benefits could redound to fossil fuel infrastructure first and foremost.
On his first day back in office, Trump issued an executive order entitled Unleashing American Energy, which instructed CEQ to provide new, nonbinding guidance on NEPA implementation and “propose rescinding” its existing regulations within 30 days. Time is up, and CEQ published its first round of guidance late Wednesday night. So far it’s pretty bare bones, though as Hochman pointed out, it notably does away with environmental justice considerations as well as the need to take the “cumulative” environmental effect of an action into account, as opposed to simply the “reasonably foreseeable effects.” It also looks to exempt certain projects that receive federal loans from the NEPA process.
But gutting CEQ’s regulatory capacity via this so-called “interim final rule” is a controversial move of questionable legality. Interim final rules generally go into effect immediately, thus skirting the requirement to gather public comment beforehand. Expediting rules like this is only allowed in cases where posting advance notice and taking comments is deemed “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.”
It’s almost certain that this interim rule will be challenged in court. Sierra Club senior attorney Nathaniel Shoaff certainly thinks it should be. “This action is rash, unlawful, and unwise. Rather than making it easier to responsibly build new infrastructure, throwing out implementing regulations for NEPA will only serve to create chaos and uncertainty,” Shoaff said in a statement. “The Trump administration seems to think that the rules don’t apply to them, but we’re confident the courts will say otherwise.”
Thomas Hochman, director of infrastructure at the center-right think tank Foundation for American Innovation, disagrees. “I think environmental groups will sue, and I think they’ll lose,” he told me. Hochman cited a surprising decision issued by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals last November, which stated that CEQ did not have the authority to issue binding NEPA regulations, and that it was never intended to "act as a regulatory agency rather than as an advisory agency.” This ruling ultimately made it possible for Trump to so radically reimagine CEQ’s authority in his executive order.
“I would expect environmentalists on the left to challenge any Trump administration actions on NEPA,” Domenech told me. “But I actually think that the Trump team welcomes that, because they'd love to get quicker, decisive rulings on whether or not CEQ even had this authority to begin with.”
NEPA, which went into effect before the Environmental Protection Agency was even created, is a short law with the simple goal of requiring federal agencies to take the environmental impact of their work into account. But responsibility for the law’s implementation has always fallen to CEQ, which created a meticulous environmental review and public input process — perhaps too meticulous for an era that demands significant, rapid infrastructure investment to enable the energy transition.
Recognizing this, the Biden administration tried to rein in NEPA and expedite environmental review via provisions in the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act, which included imposing time limits on Environmental Assessments and Environmental Impact Statements and setting page limits for these documents. But as Hochman sees it, these well intentioned reforms didn’t make much of a dent. “It was up to CEQ to take the language from the Fiscal Responsibility Act and then write their interpretation of it,” he told me. “And what CEQ basically did was they grafted it back into the status quo.” Now that those regulations are kaput, however, Hochman thinks the Fiscal Responsibility Act’s amendments will have much more power to narrow NEPA’s mandate.
Trump’s executive order requires the yet-to-be-announced chair of CEQ to coordinate a revision of each individual agency’s NEPA regulations, a process that the recent CEQ guidelines allow 12 months for. But developers can’t afford to sit around. So in the meantime, CEQ recommends (but can’t enforce) that agencies “continue to follow their existing practices and procedures for implementing NEPA” and emphasizes that “agencies should not delay pending or ongoing NEPA analyses while undertaking these revisions.” That said, chaos and confusion are always an option. As Hochman explained, many current agency regulations reference the soon-to-be defunct CEQ regulations, which could create legal complications.
Hochman told me he still thinks CEQ has an important role to play in a scaled-down NEPA landscape. “CEQ ideally will define pretty clearly the framework that agencies should abide by as they write their new regulations,” he explained. For example, he told me that CEQ should be responsible for interpreting critical terms such as what constitutes a “major federal action” that would trigger NEPA, or what counts as an action that “normally does not significantly affect the quality of the human environment,” which would exempt a project from substantial environmental review.
No doubt many of these interpretations will wind up in court. “You will probably see up front litigation of these original definitions, but once they’ve been decided on by higher courts, they won’t really be an open question anymore,” Hochman told me. Basically, some initial pain for lots of future gain is what he’s betting on. Once the text of the interim rule is posted and the lawsuits start rolling in, we’ll check in on the status of that wager.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the publication of CEQ’s new guidance on NEPA implementation.
Trump called himself “king” and tried to kill the program, but it might not be so simple.
The Trump administration will try to kill congestion pricing, the first-in-the-nation program that charged cars and trucks up to $9 to enter Manhattan’s traffic-clogged downtown core.
In an exclusive story given to the New York Post, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said that he would rescind the U.S. Transportation Department’s approval of the pricing regime.
“The toll program leaves drivers without any free highway alternative, and instead, takes more money from working people to pay for a transit system and not highways,” Duffy told the Post.
He did not specify an end date for the program, but said that he would work with New York to achieve an “orderly termination” of the tolls. But it’s not clear that he can unilaterally end congestion pricing — and in any case, New York is not eager to work with him to do so.
The attempted cancellation adds another chapter to the decades-long saga over whether to implement road pricing in downtown New York. And it represents another front in the Trump administration’s war on virtually any policy that reduces fossil fuel use and cuts pollution from the transportation sector, the most carbon-intensive sector in the U.S. economy.
“CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED,” Trump posted on Truth Social, the social network that he owns. “LONG LIVE THE KING!”
The Metropolitan Transit Authority, the state agency that oversees New York’s tolling and transit system, has filed to block the cancellation in court. In a statement, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said that Trump didn’t have the authority to kill the tolling program.
“We are a nation of laws, not ruled by a king,” Hochul said. “We’ll see you in court.”
Since it started on January 5, congestion pricing has charged drivers up to $9 to drive into Manhattan south of 60th Street. With its launch, New York joined a small set of world capitals — including London, Singapore, and Stockholm — to use road pricing in its central business district.
Even in its first weeks in Gotham, congestion pricing had seemingly proven successful at its main goal: cutting down on traffic. Travel times to enter Manhattan have fallen and in some cases — such as driving into the Holland Tunnel from New Jersey — have been cut in half during rush hour, according to an online tracker built by economics researchers that uses Google Maps data.
Anecdotally, drivers have reported faster drive times within the city and much less honking overall. (I can affirm that downtown is much quieter now.) City buses zoomed through their routes, at times having to pause at certain stops in order to keep from running ahead of their schedules.
The program has been so successful that it had even begun to turn around in public polling. Although congestion pricing was incredibly unpopular during its long gestation, a majority of New Yorkers now support the program. In early February, six of 10 New Yorkers said that they thought Trump should keep the program and not kill it, according to a Morning Consult poll.
That matches a pattern seen in other cities that adopt congestion pricing, where most voters hate the program until they see that it successfully improves travel times and reduces traffic.
While Trump might now be claiming regal powers to block the program, the toll’s origin story has been democratic to a fault. Although congestion pricing has been proposed in New York for decades, the state’s legislature approved the program in 2019 as part of its long-running search for a permanent source of funding for the city’s trains and buses.
The federal government then studied the program for half a decade, first under Trump, then under Biden, generating thousands upon thousands of pages of environmental and legal review. At long last, the Biden administration granted final approval for the program last year.
But then congestion pricing had to clear another hurdle. In June, Hochul paused the program at the last moment, hoping to find another source of permanent funding for the city’s public transit system.
She didn’t. In November, she announced that the program would go into effect in the new year.
It’s not clear whether the Trump administration can actually kill congestion pricing. When the Biden administration approved the program, it did so essentially as a one-time finding. Duffy may not be able to revoke that finding — just like you can’t un-sign a contract that you’ve already agreed to.
In his letter to Hochul, Duffy argues that congestion pricing breaks a longstanding norm that federally funded highways should not be tolled. “The construction of federal-aid highways as a toll-free highway system has long been one of the most basic and fundamental tenets of the federal-aid Highway Program,” he says.
That argument is surprising because federal highways in Manhattan — such as the West Side Highway — are excluded from the toll by design. Drivers only incur the $9 charge when they leave highways and enter Manhattan’s street grid. And drivers can use the interstate highway system but avoid the congestion charge by entering uptown Manhattan through Interstate 95 and then parking north of 60th Street.
Duffy also argues that the tolling program is chiefly meant to raise revenue for the MTA, not reduce congestion. The federal government’s approval of pilot congestion pricing programs is aimed at cutting traffic, he says, not raising revenue for state agencies.
In its lawsuit, the MTA asserts that Duffy does not have the right to revoke the agreement. It also says that he must conduct the same degree of environmental review to kill the program that the first Trump administration required when the program was originally proposed.
“The status quo is that Congestion Pricing continues, and unless and until a court orders otherwise, plaintiffs will continue to operate the program as required by New York law,” the MTA’s brief says.