ClearPath: 2025

Overview

The Giving Green Fund plans to award a grant to ClearPath to support its policy advocacy for US-based clean technology innovation. ClearPath is a nonprofit focused on accelerating US innovation to reduce global energy emissions.

ClearPath’s work cuts across a number of our promoted philanthropic strategies related to clean technology innovation, including nuclear, geothermal, industrial decarbonization, and carbon removal. Please see Giving Green’s philanthropic strategy reports for more information, including potential risks and co-benefits, recommended sub-strategies, theory of change, funding need, and key uncertainties.

Last updated: April 2025

What is ClearPath?

ClearPath is a US-based nonprofit founded in 2014 to support global emissions reductions through US innovation. It focuses on right-of-center policies for decarbonization. Its issue areas include clean energy, carbon removal, clean manufacturing, agricultural innovation, and positioning the US as a global leader in deploying clean energy technologies.

What are we funding at ClearPath and how could it help reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

We are funding ClearPath to continue its work on clean technology innovation. This includes its educational work on authorizations—ensuring that Congress gives the green light for key government programs to exist and operate—and defending provisions relevant to clean energy innovation that may otherwise be rolled back. ClearPath also helps coordinate business groups to back policies that advance clean technology innovation.

We think ClearPath’s activities could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions because early support for emerging technologies can potentially drive down their cost and accelerate their deployment worldwide, reducing emissions globally.

Why do we think ClearPath will use this funding well?

We think ClearPath will use this funding well based on its historic wins, ability to educate conservatives, and demonstrated need for more funding.

Historically, ClearPath has successfully contributed to increasing US Department of Energy funding each year since FY18 and supported the creation of programs that help demonstrate a wide variety of clean energy technologies. We think that ClearPath’s close working relationships with conservative clean energy champions will be especially valuable under a Republican trifecta. Our grant is intended to help fill a funding gap in ClearPath’s innovation work. Our understanding is that without new funding for innovation, ClearPath may have to scale back its other efforts, such as external engagement with its partners. We think it could be important to guard against that scenario because our understanding is that other stakeholders have turned to ClearPath as a leader under the new Trump administration.

Giving Green believes that additional climate donations are likely to be most impactful when directed to our top nonprofits. For a number of reasons, we may choose to recommend grants to other organizations for work that we believe is at least as impactful as grants to our top recommendations. We are highlighting this grant to offer transparency to donors to the Giving Green Fund as well as to provide a resource for donors who are particularly interested in this impact strategy. This is a nonpartisan analysis (study or research) and is provided for educational purposes.