Stand Up for Our Children Campaign

Stand Up to Cancer has enabled scientific breakthroughs and has been extremely effective by funding collaborative multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional scientific research teams and investigators. This same approach could be taken for research on the climate and its solutions.

On the first day of the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, a group of twenty two governments in addition to the European Union and philanthropist Bill Gates pledged to double spending on clean energy research and development. This group is referred to as Mission Innovation. Experts have suggested that this approach needs to be augmented with “smaller, more focused groups of high-powered backers” (The Paths to Net Zero, How Technology Can Save The Planet - Azevedo, Davidson, Jenkins, Karplus, Victor). Our vision is that by using a model similar to Stand Up For Cancer, small groups of climate leaders, philanthropists, businesses, and state and national governments could be brought together to work in teams, perhaps even in competition, to fund essential research in the area of climate solutions.

Considering the general consensus that our planet demands extensive funding for research and development, we firmly believe that cooperation between individual investors, enterprises, and state leaders offers the most expedient avenue to implement and enforce meaningful and lasting changes. This work would be best accomplished in collaboration with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as well as the World Climate Research Program and perhaps the World Economic Forum.