Press Release: Three California cities win $1 million each to embark on a climate change moonshot — becoming carbon neutral by 2030

Contact: Neal Gorenflo, Press Liaison, (415) 867-0429, neal@shareable.net

Mountain View, CA, October 25, 2021 (PDF | Cool Cities Website) - The Cool City Challenge awarded multi-sectoral teams in three cities — Los Angeles, Irvine and Petaluma — $1 million plus consulting support to execute their plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030 without carbon offsets. The awards are the result of a rigorous, months-long application process involving over 40 California cities.

California Governor, Gavin Newsom, described the Cool City Challenge “as an exemplary how-to guide for local communities to make a significant impact on climate change.” He added, “it demonstrates the untapped potential of citizens to engage in an effective and achievable way.”

The bar for the climate moonshot award was set extremely high to make sure the winning cities have the right stuff to take on such an ambitious goal. All applicants were required to recruit a cross-sector leadership team, 25 community partner organizations, 200 block leaders plus create a climate moonshot strategy.

Applicants were also encouraged to ask their city councils to pass resolutions committing to carbon neutrality by 2030. All three cities have passed these game changing resolutions—the most aggressive in America. The Cool City Challenge builds on decades of innovative behavior and social change work by David Gershon, CEO of Empowerment Institute, author of “Social Change 2.0: A Blueprint for Reinventing Our World,” and creator of the Challenge.

Gershon on the winners: “These cities deeply inspired me with their dedication to such a rigorous application process, their out-of-the-box moonshot thinking, and the high-caliber leaders spanning the public, private and civic sectors they attracted to their moonshot teams.”

Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz, author of the City’s Carbon Neutral 2030 Legislation commented: “If we are to meet the greatest challenge ever faced by humankind — in time — we must look climate change square in the face, and do not what’s possible, but what’s necessary to keep our planet habitable and thriving.” He continued, “The Cool City Challenge provides the framework, the path, and the people power.”

The Cool City Challenge is based on Empowerment Institute’s three decades of research across hundreds of cities worldwide developing and refining social change strategies capable of accelerating the speed, magnitude and quality of change.

These strategies include moonshot thinking, a whole system climate solution framework, individual and community empowerment, tipping point science, and a robust transformative change methodology. Sona Coffee, Environmental Program Administrator for the City of Irvine and co-leader of Irvine’s moonshot team, said of the Challenge, “it offers the next-level solutions needed to make carbon neutrality by 2030 a reality.”

The three winning cities reflect the diversity of California with representation from urban and suburban, north and south, coastal and inland, and small and large communities. The cities also represent wide ethnic, racial and cultural diversity.

Each plan developed by these cities had a bottom-up moonshot climate solution—Empowerment Institute’s proven Cool Block program which has achieved a 29% average carbon footprint reduction per household—and top-down moonshot climate solutions in policy, technology, and market development. The Challenge integrates these top-down and bottom-up solutions for a synergistic effect capable of accelerating the speed of change.

Natasha Juliana, a small business owner and co-leader of Petaluma’s moonshot team, commented on the Challenge, “it provides a clear way forward when a lot of people want to act, but don’t know what to do. And the scalability is what makes it so exciting.”

“We’ve had to evacuate my two children five times because of climate-exacerbated wildfires. We need to act much more boldly and at a greater speed and scale,” said Andy Shrader, Director of Environmental Affairs for Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz and co-founder of Los Angeles’ moonshot team. He added, “the Cool City Challenge is the best thing I can do for my children right now. For everyone’s children.”

The next steps for the three winning teams include intensive training with the Cool City Challenge team, roll-out of over 200 Cool Blocks within each city, and refinement of their moonshot climate action plans.

Gershon explained why he created the Challenge, “cities emit 70% of the planet’s carbon emissions and citizens represent 70% of those emissions through their daily lifestyle choices. A partnership between cities and citizens is clearly needed for success.”

He added, “the latest climate science tells us we must move carbon reduction targets forward to 2030 from 2050 to avoid irreversible ecological tipping points. The Cool City Challenge is designed to do just that.” The Cool City Challenge will expand in California and nationally in 2022, and internationally in 2023. Interested cities can fill out the pre-application form at coolcity.earth.

About the Cool City Challenge: The Cool City Challenge mission is to accelerate the decarbonization of the world’s cities which emit 70% of the planet’s CO2. It does this by empowering cities to create moonshot strategies based on integrating bottom-up and top-down climate solutions. This is complemented by building the transformative capacity of moonshot leadership teams from the public, private and civic sectors. Combining these two elements creates a whole system climate solution with the ability to accelerate the speed and magnitude of change. It then provides these multi-sector moonshot teams with the financial resources, tools and consulting support to embark on this profoundly important mission for humanity’s future.

About Empowerment Institute: Empowerment Institute, a nonprofit organization, is one of the world’s foremost experts in empowerment and transformative social change. Over the past 30 years it has empowered millions of people worldwide to reduce their carbon and overall environmental footprint and hundreds of cities to become more sustainable. One academic study described its empowerment methodology as “unsurpassed in changing behavior.”

It has won many awards including its Cool City Challenge initiative winning the prestigious NASA global competition as “the most outstanding solution in addressing human impact on the planet’s sustainability.” Empowerment Institute is the architect of the Cool City Challenge and responsible for its overall implementation.