The Challenge

We live in a time of planetary crisis.

In response to the 2021 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres declared that the current science was “a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable.”

We see the consequences: dramatic weather and climate events in our lifetime. Deepening inequity in access to capital and power. The increasing marginalization of those most vulnerable to and least responsible for the climate crisis. Our warming planet will have dire health consequences as our oceans, land, air, and ecosystems are threatened by fossil-fuel driven economies, untethered economic expansion, and no collaborative and collective vision about our shared future.

The wellness, vibrancy, and productivity of all global communities will be profoundly impacted by climate change and the strategies we activate today are paramount to ensuring a healthy, sustainable future. The need for action is urgent as climate change impacts the environmental determinants of health – clean air, safe water, and food production.

The World Health Organization estimates that climate change will cause 250,000 additional deaths annually from malaria, malnutrition, diarrheal disease, and respiratory conditions over the next 25 years. Regions where the health systems are fragile, and the disease burden is high, are even more vulnerable to the consequences ahead of us.

We live in a brief window of opportunity.

Despite the magnitude of our challenges, we see hope in a new wave of insight, focus, collaboration, and momentum toward community-led climate mitigation and climate resilience strategies, from technology, to social movements, to policy and advocacy. Philanthropy has a vital role – a responsibility – to ensure that local, indigenous, and community-based approaches to climate resilience have the opportunity to take root and grow.

As ever, women are at the heart of the solutions we seek. As existential health threats unfold, it is women who disproportionately shoulder the burdens. As primary providers of food and family care, women see the consequences of climate change directly affecting their communities. They seek solutions; they adapt; they find novel ways to nurture family wellness, preserve the environment, and protect a healthy future. The solutions are generated locally, by activists and leaders who bring a dimensionally different interpretation about how to solve the most urgent threats of our time.

The Valerian Fund seeks to support and scaffold this new wave of leaders and ideas who are showing us how to adapt to and defend against the climate change era that is upon us.