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As the UN’s COP26 approached in the fall, the first major climate summit since the 2015 Paris Agreement, we saw a unique opportunity to elevate our partners and their work.
Media attention focused on what new commitments national governments might make, and while that was certainly important, commitments are only as good as the actions taken to support them. Developing, adopting, and implementing national policies take time, which we don’t have a lot of, as well as political capital, and even the most deliberate efforts don’t always become law. The leaders we’ve long supported – like mayors, scientists, activists, business and philanthropic leaders, and local advocates – can act much faster. And so in the two months leading up to the summit, we decided to pull them all together in a push to build momentum, by taking 60 actions in 60 days.
For example: With partners like C40 Cities and the Global Covenant of Mayors, we rallied more than 1,000 cities to pledge to reach net zero emissions by 2030, decades earlier than many national governments have committed to doing. We worked with the mayors of London and Brussels to roll out localized air quality sensors and better manage the threat of toxic air pollution. And we collaborated with our colleagues at Bloomberg L.P., who are leading vitally important work to analyze the economic impacts of climate change and give companies and investors the data they need.
The response from our partners was overwhelmingly positive, and in just 60 days we took 85 concrete and meaningful actions to advance the climate fight. It was a testament to the power of strong partnerships, which lie at the heart of our approach to philanthropy. Working for Mike Bloomberg, whether in the public, private, or nonprofit sector, has always meant building partnerships that have the potential to make the greatest difference in people’s lives – an idea that informs everything we do at Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Over the past year, as COVID-19 continued turning the world upside down, we focused on strengthening and deepening our partnerships in ways that would allow us to respond to urgent needs quickly and decisively. The pandemic pushed those needs to new heights across all of our program areas, especially since much of our work focuses on the places it hit hardest: cities.
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