Climate Hub: Grantee Spotlight (Q3 2026)

The Giving Green Fund is awarding a restricted grant to Climate Hub to build domestic research and advisory capacity on solar radiation modification (SRM) in climate-vulnerable countries. Climate Hub is a small nonprofit staffed by former climate policy experts, regulators, diplomats, and advocates. It works to reduce near-term climate risk by building the technical and policy capacity needed to research safe, sustainable, and just options for policymakers, and to develop governance for that research. SRM is one strand of that broader work, and this restricted grant is Climate Hub's first focused on it.

Climate Hub’s work falls within our philanthropic strategy of advancing solar radiation modification (SRM) governance and research, and, more specifically, within our sub-strategy of opening political pathways for SRM research by engaging key stakeholders. We recognize the significant uncertainties surrounding SRM and believe we should consider its (non-)deployment carefully and inclusively. The complexity and interconnectedness of Earth’s natural systems make it difficult to predict how SRM effects would manifest and how much we could mitigate them. Please see Giving Green’s strategy report for more information, including potential risks and co-benefits, recommended sub-strategies, theory of change, funding need, and key uncertainties.

Last updated: October 2026

What Is Climate Hub?

Climate Hub was established in 2025 as a fiscally sponsored project of Res Publica. It is a small nonprofit that works on near-term climate risk: the risks that mitigation and adaptation may not avert in time. Its mission is to ensure adequate research is done to give policymakers safe, sustainable, and just options for those risks, and that governance develops alongside the research. That work covers a range of Earth system risks and potential responses, including SRM. Climate Hub does not advocate for or against deploying any particular intervention. Its team draws on senior policy, regulatory, diplomatic, and advocacy backgrounds. Res Publica is headquartered in the U.S.; Climate Hub works internationally.

What Are We Funding, and How Could It Help Address Climate Change?

SRM is a set of hypothetical climate interventions that would cool the planet by reflecting sunlight and reducing the energy the Earth absorbs. Decisions about whether to deploy SRM would carry profound consequences, whatever the outcome. Ensuring those decisions are informed by robust evidence, transparent governance, and meaningful public participation is therefore in the public interest. We think the governance and research infrastructure built now will shape how future societies evaluate SRM, and whether any future decisions are made in ways that serve rather than disadvantage climate-vulnerable populations.

Because SRM is controversial, few governments engage with it publicly, slowing progress toward the research needed for a just, transparent, and responsible (non-)deployment decision. Countries most exposed to climate risk have the strongest claim to shape that process, but almost none of them currently have the capacity to do so.

We are funding Climate Hub to help build that capacity in three climate-vulnerable countries where it has identified early interest in these questions. The grant supports:

1. In-country research and advisory capacity on SRM, provided by national experts and institutions, that policymakers in each country can call on.
2. Independent, scientifically validated analysis by those experts and institutions on the risks, uncertainties, and governance questions surrounding SRM.
3. Connections between those experts and institutions and international research and governance discussions, so that the perspectives of climate-vulnerable countries are represented as norms take shape.

By building expertise within countries, Climate Hub's work could help ensure that research and whatever governance frameworks emerge reflect the priorities of climate-vulnerable states.

A central risk of SRM research is moral hazard: the risk that policymakers and other actors treat SRM as a substitute for mitigation rather than a last-resort tool. Climate Hub treats this risk as already active rather than hypothetical, and builds its program around it in three ways. All of Climate Hub’s outputs frame mitigation as necessary and SRM as a potential way to buy time for mitigation to deliver, never as an alternative or substitute. Its proposed program is also anchored in three climate-vulnerable states whose own exposure to risks SRM cannot address—such as sea-level rise and failing food systems—ties their interest to the mitigation coalitions they already help lead. Because research capacity can itself become a constituency for deployment, Climate Hub’s support comes with conditions: It would withdraw support from any partner that advocates for deployment ahead of legitimate governance or presents SRM as a substitute for mitigation. We think these practices reduce the risk that Climate Hub’s work is read as a reason to deprioritize mitigation.

Why Do We Think Climate Hub Will Use This Funding Well?

Climate Hub's team combines former climate policy experts, regulators, diplomats, and advocates who have worked on mitigation and adaptation policy at national and international levels. It has experience facilitating engagement on politically charged questions and connecting national institutions to international processes. The organization reports early interest in its focus geographies.

The policy windows Climate Hub targets are time-limited. Growing recognition that climate overshoot is likely is moving SRM research and governance up the international agenda, and national positions are likely to solidify over the next few years. Climate-vulnerable countries without their own research and advisory capacity may have less influence over the resulting norms. We see this combination as the core case for this grant: a gap in whose priorities are shaping SRM governance, a small and credible team positioned to help fill it, and a closing window in which that capacity matters.

We publish grant spotlights to offer transparency to Giving Green Fund donors and resources for those interested in the impact strategies each grant supports. Giving Green believes our Top Climate Nonprofits have the greatest impact potential for large, unrestricted gifts. For several reasons, we also disburse and recommend grants to other organizations surfaced through our research process for work that we believe is at least as impactful as grants to our top recommendations. 

This is a non-partisan analysis (study or research) and is provided for educational purposes.

Res Publica, the fiscal sponsor of Climate Hub, is a registered nonprofit in the U.S.