Our Planet Needs a Few Cool Cities
Is Your City Ready to Change the World?
We invite you to participate in a climate moonshot to make your city carbon neutral by 2030! The Cool City Challenge will partner with a select number of cities to implement our moonshot climate action plan.Â
If your city is interested in learning more, click here:
About the Cool City Challenge:
The Cool City Challenge is a climate moonshot strategy. Its mission is to accelerate the decarbonization of the world’s cities which emit 70% of the planet’s CO2 through empowering its citizens – 70% of a city’s carbon footprint.Â
It is a whole system climate solution which integrates bottom-up and top-down change strategies. It develops the transformative leadership skills of a multi-sector team to facilitate a Moonshot Climate Action Plan (MCAP) in a city. The MCAP is built upon the foundation of the Cool Block of 5 to 8 households and Cool Neighborhood of approximately 10 Cool Blocks in geographic proximity. This creates the foundation for creating a carbon neutral neighborhood. The goal of the MCAP is to scale up carbon neutral neighborhoods citywide.Â
By combining the MCAP strategy with these empowerment tools, a city is able to accelerate the speed and magnitude of change needed to become carbon neutral by 2030. The intent of the Cool City Challenge is to create 100 climate moonshot cities across the US and worldwide over the next several years. This will provide the knowledge, models, and momentum for its larger mission of accelerating the decarbonization of the world’s cities.Â
Over 5,000 people on 325 Cool Block teams across eight California cities (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Santa Barbara, Isla Vista, Irvine, and Petaluma) have participated in the program pilot phases. They achieved an average household carbon reduction of 31% (5 metric tons), took 25 actions, and had a 45% block recruitment rate.Â
A Climate Moonshot
Climate scientists tell us we must achieve by 2030 what humanity is trying to accomplish by 2050 to avoid irreversible ecological tipping points. In other words, we must accelerate time by 3x. To achieve this, we need to change the way we think about change. Business as usual climate solutions are not up to the task. We need a climate moonshot strategy.
The Cool City Challenge invites cities to embark on the climate moonshot of our time: becoming carbon neutral by 2030.
Technologically we know this is possible, but it is the magnitude and speed of change that is the challenge. This is a second order change problem and needs a second order change solution.
The Cool City Challenge moonshot strategy is a robust second order change climate solution based on three decades of experience that brings the whole system together. It provides a scalable blueprint for cities to embark on this profoundly inspiring and necessary mission for humanity’s future.
What is Moonshot Thinking?
Moonshot thinking is when you choose a huge problem and propose a radical solution using breakthrough technology.
Huge problem: The need to dramatically accelerate the speed and magnitude of carbon mitigation in cities which represents 70% of the planet’s CO2 emissions.Â
Radical solution: Empower cities to become carbon neutral by 2030 accelerating by 3x the 2050 United Nations goal.Â
Breakthrough technology: Our moonshot climate action plan second order change social technology.
Climate Moonshot Vision
Click on image to learn about the vision.Â
Climate Moonshot Strategy
Click on image to learn about the strategy.Â
Cool Block Program
Second Order Change "How To" Manual
Click on image to learn about second order change.Â