Climate Breakthrough Award will make it possible to enable peatland restoration and protection on several sites from Finland to North American boreal. Climate Breakthrough Award program is uniquely designed for social change leaders to develop, launch, and scale their new initiatives with breakthrough potential to address climate change. Snowchange work will scale up in Arctic Circle area in Finland, Minnesota, Canada and Alaska on peatlands.
Over the next three years, the Climate Breakthrough program will provide a $4 million funding package to develop, launch, and scale boldest new initiatives with breakthrough potential to address climate change. All in all four teams and leaders have been chosen for 2024.
This means initiatives that could significantly reduce global annual greenhouse gas emissions, affect entire industries or regions of the world, and materially change the lives of tens of millions of people within ten years of launch.
“I’m honored to welcome Alex, Eriel, Kimiko, and Tero into the Climate Breakthrough Award program. They exemplify the kind of visionary leadership and thinking that lies at the heart of our mission. We’re honored to support them in bringing their most ambitious climate action ideas to life,” said Savanna Ferguson, Executive Director of Climate Breakthrough.
Climate Breakthrough Award associated with Snowchange Landscape Rewilding Programme will establish a pan-boreal network of Restoration Hubs on peatlands with the following territories to start with
- Boreal peatlands at the Arctic Circle in Finland, including stepping stones ecosystems in Kemijärvi, Sodankylä, Savukoski and especially in Ranua. Additionally we will investigate the role of cultural landscapes in a wind power investments in Ranua
- Northern Minnesota and the St. Louis River peatlands
- Hudson Bay ecoregion in Canada
- Central Alaska with pilot areas currently being discussed
Launched in 2016, the Climate Breakthrough Award program is uniquely designed for social change leaders to develop, launch, and scale their new initiatives with breakthrough potential to address climate change. Climate Breakthrough Awardees have collectively secured over $236 million in follow-on funding from more than 90 different funders to advance their work. Combined, their Climate Breakthrough initiatives have the potential to reduce global annual greenhouse gas emissions by more than 5.3 gigatons by 2030.
