Weekly Briefing: With your support & your work, we’re ready for 2025

Jan. 8, 2025

Happy New Year! We hope all our CCL volunteers had a restful holiday season and enjoyed some time with the people, pets or places you love.

We’re now one week into 2025, with the 119th Congress sworn in and incoming President Trump’s inauguration coming up later this month. Citizens’ Climate staff are hard at work strategizing the best ways to support our volunteers around the country, put targeted pressure on Congress, and meet this moment.

But before the momentum of the year sweeps us away, we want to thank you for your generous support in our Year-End Fundraiser. You raised a total of $1,467,661, exceeding our target of $1,250,000! We are deeply grateful for your generosity and your commitment to this work. The funds raised are a big portion of the average annual revenue for Citizens' Climate Lobby and Citizens' Climate Education, and it goes a long way toward helping us make a meaningful impact on climate policy in Congress. If you didn't get a chance to donate before year end, there's no better time than now.

Speaking of making an impact, make sure you’ve logged in to CCL Community and checked out your personalized 2024 CCL Summary. Each slide tells the story of CCL’s work last year and how your individual efforts fit in, from the times you contacted Congress to all the climate buzz created in your state. Let it inspire you for a new year of advocacy!

See My Summary

In other news this week:

• Climate impacts hitting California: Our hearts go out to everyone affected by the wildfires, high winds, evacuations and power outages going on in southern California. It’s a stark reminder of the escalating challenge we face as carbon pollution drives more and more extreme weather.
  
• #TheSocialClimate: Our new social media campaign, #TheSocialClimate, still needs volunteers! We’re looking for CCLers with an interest in video or social media to help create content to post on CCL’s TikTok account. This project is perfect for climate advocates who know their way around TikTok, students looking to get into climate communications, and anyone else with a phone camera and a video idea! Learn more about the project in this short video and email marketing@citizensclimate.org to get involved.

Take action this week

If you have a little time: Share this social media post to encourage more climate work. Right now, folks are thinking about their New Year’s Resolutions and what they want their 2025 to look like. It’s the perfect time to share a post like this one and encourage your friends and followers to get more involved with climate advocacy! Share it to your Instagram story, Facebook profile, or Bluesky feed.

If you have more time: Attend CCL’s January monthly meeting. This Saturday at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT, join us on Zoom for our first meeting of 2025. We are excited to welcome Lucero Marquez, Associate Director of Federal Climate Policy at Center for American Progress, as our guest speaker this month. She will discuss the climate impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act and why it’s important to defend this legislation from repeal as the 119th Congress gets underway. Plus, we’ll hear a legislative update from CCL Executive Director Rachel Kerestes and get into our January actions together. See you on Saturday!

Feature your chapter or Action Team in 2025

Loyal readers will know — in this newsletter, we try to spotlight a CCL chapter each week. It’s a great chance to celebrate our volunteers’ work out in the field (like the local tabling event above) and share their successes to inspire others. In 2025, we’re expanding the features to include CCL’s Action Teams!

We want to hear what you’ve been up to with Congress, in the media, or in the communities you work with.

If you want your chapter or Action Team to be featured, brag on your group in this form, and you may see yourself in the spotlight in an upcoming week.

Upcoming trainings

1/16: Data to Defend the IRA - This training covers some useful data for convincing members of Congress to preserve key components of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in the 119th Congress (2025–2027). It also reviews the political climate of this congressional term, and the relative importance of various provisions in the IRA. Join us!

1/21: CCL Community Website Walkthrough - Newer to CCL and excited to make a difference? Take this training to learn to navigate our websites and find opportunities to put your talents, experience and interests to work with CCL. Join us!

To see other topics and past trainings, visit the Training Topics page of CCL Community.