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Clean Air Task Force: Deep Dive

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This report was updated in November 2024. Unless otherwise cited, information in this deep dive comes from direct correspondence with Clean Air Task Force.


Clean Air Task Force is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization in the United States. As Giving Green is part of IDinsight Inc., a charitable, tax-exempt organization, we only offer an opinion on the charitable activities of Clean Air Task Force, not CATF Action. This non-partisan analysis (study or research) is provided for educational purposes.


Summary

Clean Air Task Force (CATF) is one of the top climate nonprofits selected by Giving Green in 2024. We previously recommended CATF in 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2020. CATF has a history of successfully advocating for a wide array of climate provisions in the US and is expanding its influence internationally. In particular, CATF has begun to scale its work on technology innovation to include global implementation and commercialization, focusing on technologies that are either nascent or lack broad support from civil society. By raising awareness and advocating for favorable policies in these areas, we think CATF can speed up decarbonization in sectors that might otherwise struggle to secure funding.


When we reassessed CATF in 2024, we closely analyzed three program areas aligned with our sectors of focus—superhot rock energy, zero-carbon fuels, and transportation decarbonization—and were impressed by the teams’ technical analysis, stakeholder engagement, and policy advocacy. While we have not assessed the other program areas in detail, we have a strong view of CATF’s work overall; our recommendation is for unrestricted funding of the organization at large.


CATF would use additional funds to support the multi-year strategies of its existing programs and continued international expansion.

  • What is CATF? CATF is a nonprofit that advocates for a suite of technologies and policies to decarbonize the economy across sectors. CATF’s work can be generalized into three categories: modeling and systems analysis, technology innovation, and policy advocacy. While it has predominantly focused on the US in the past, it has expanded its work to the EU, the Middle East, and Africa.

  • How could CATF address climate change? Many technologies that CATF prioritizes are either nascent or not broadly supported by civil society despite being recognized as critical to decarbonization. By elevating these issue areas to public attention and advocating for favorable policies, CATF can help accelerate decarbonization in areas that may otherwise struggle to secure funding.

  • What are some of CATF’s historical accomplishments? CATF helped secure key climate provisions in the bipartisan US. Energy Act of 2020, and provided technical assistance and input on important authorization and funding measures in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). It also successfully advocated for Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provisions relating to cutting methane pollution, advancing neglected low-emissions technologies, and making tax incentives and grants stackable. CATF was instrumental in catalyzing the Global Methane Pledge, introduced by US President Joe Biden and EU President Ursula von der Leyen in September 2021, and signed by more than 100 countries at COP26. Under this pledge, countries collectively agree to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030.

  • What’s new at CATF in 2024? CATF has been deeply engaged in advancing key policy priorities in the US and EU that align with our philanthropic strategies, including a federal clean fuel standard and R&D funding for advanced geothermal technologies. Moving forward, CATF is continuing its expansive policymaker engagement and education on these crucial policy levers. CATF is conducting first-of-a-kind modeling of the full U.S. transportation sector to assess the impact on fuel demand and emissions under a range of potential policy developments. In terms of its work on geothermal, CATF continues to provide thought leadership on superhot rock geothermal and has broadened its policy work to include supporting demonstrations of existing next-generation geothermal technologies. CATF’s efforts underpin its goals to enable positive policy progress on key technologies in priority geographies.

  • Is there room for more funding? We think that CATF could effectively absorb more money to expand geographically and sustain multi-year program strategies.

  • Are there major co-benefits or potential risks? We think the major co-benefits and adverse effects of CATF’s work are more directly linked to the technologies for which CATF advocates. For example, co-benefits for geothermal include a geothermal power plants’ smaller land footprint compared to other generating technologies, improved air quality compared to continued fossil fuel usage, and job opportunities for former fossil fuel workers. Adverse effects include risks of contaminated groundwater and induced seismicity. Co-benefits for ZCFs include lower air pollution, and adverse effects include toxicity and other safety concerns. For more information, see our deep dives on Geothermal Energy and Decarbonizing Aviation and Maritime Shipping.

  • Key uncertainties and open questions: Key uncertainties include the consequences of rapid growth, support of incentives for power sector carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) for storage of captured emissions or atmospheric removals, support for a broad low-carbon hydrogen portfolio, hedging our bets on next-generation geothermal technologies in different stages of development, and the general feasibility of decarbonizing aviation.

  • Bottom line / next steps: We classify CATF as one of our top recommendations for nonprofits addressing climate change. We think there is strong evidence to support its work in technological innovation and its increasingly international influence. Also, we think its strategy of focusing on emerging technologies and neglected sectors can help accelerate interventions and activities that would otherwise struggle to secure funding. In particular, we find its work in superhot rock energy, zero-carbon fuels, and transport decarbonization to be highly effective and complementary to the work of our other recommendations in geothermal energy and decarbonization of aviation and maritime shipping: Project InnerSpace and Opportunity Green, respectively.

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