From Ocean to Ocean...

Jul 12

Written By Cityfi

938 words in this newsletter - about 3 minutes and 56 seconds to read.

By Victoria Fanibi

… devotion to climate and tech innovation remains to be one of the more unique ways we are all united. We may all be stuck together on this spinning rock and have vastly different opinions on measuring systems, the most optimal side of the road to drive on, and the proper word for fries (or is it chips?), but we are happy to push all that to the side to invent new ways to build climate resiliency.

Cityfi’s Alexander Kapur took a trip to London Climate Week where a shared commitment to aggressive climate change policy is evident, but perhaps we are in need of more regulation and oversight. And in the spirit of oversight and regulatory bodies, Alexander shares some valuable advice on how we can all approach this busy grant application season.

As of today, 53% of 2024 has passed. As many of us are sprinting to complete proposals or meet deadlines (or maybe you’re enjoying vacation!), consider reflecting on all we’ve collectively accomplished so far. With less than half the year remaining, we urge you all to remain optimistic and steadfast in our work. It is so valuable.

The Great Grant Rush: Running Through the Line, Not To It

By Alexander Kapur

For those who had the privilege and luck of playing sports at high levels and with success, the phrase, “run through the line, not to it” might evoke some bittersweet memories of tough conditioning sessions. The coaching might be relevant for governments and companies facing the converging deadlines of new and second-round grant submissions (even ahead of allocations from round-one funding).

You might remember exhaustion, collapse, tunnel vision, and getting sick as you hit the wall. “Run through the line…” is a simple reminder that the expectation is to maintain or even increase effort at the close of the sprint, at the height of the temptation to let up or stop. It implies that the rewards of strenuous effort are higher when we are most beaten. The prompt shapes the mental fortitude needed in the inevitable moments of adversity that competitors face and overcome to win. Mark Twight, an eminent trainer of extreme alpinists and Nordic skiers (the fittest class of endurance athletes on the planet) says, “Endurance starts the moment you want to stop.”

While we might have expected many governments and subsidies to succumb to the strain of yet another acronym-laden grant pursuit, we see higher rates of application among local governments, increasing diversity in the applicant pools, and more private partners engaging and forging meaningful partnerships to advance the clean transition. The Communities Taking Charge Accelerator program (CTC) was incredibly over-subscribed. Relative to Round 1, we’ve seen proposals for:

E-mobility
Active Transportation
Lighter, smaller vehicles
Policy-focused pilots
Housing and urban development-focused greening
EVSE hardware and digital solutions

Why is there this diversity in the type of applicants? Potentially, this is the last time we will see this certain magnitude of direct federal concessionary capital directed to specific transportation infrastructure. This funding could make or break Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) companies. There could also be the realization that the "longer game" requires longer runways and blended capital mixes.

Cityfi has been in the midst of this sprint as we have been working with public, private, and nonprofit entities to submit applications for these grants. We are uniquely positioned to bring together parties of interest from all sectors to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes by helping shape ideas and facilitating working groups of organizations with overlapping goals.

London Climate Week: Superlatives

By Alexander Kapur

Attending London’s Climate Week highlighted yet another defining difference between our continents. Direct representation vs. parliamentary politics, under-regulated capitalism vs. high-intervention economies, National Health Services (NHS) vs. United Healthcare, fries vs. chips, and soccer vs. football.

While we might expect such clear lines in comparing our governance, culture, and sports, I left wondering if such distinct ways of approaching greenhouse gasses (GHGs), clean water/air, and conservation are a good thing for the sake of diversity, or a bad thing given that, unlike those other facets of our lives, the environment is not contained to international borders. The tactics and outcomes in one continent most certainly impact those surrounding it, even (and especially) those separated by oceans.

The Good:

Diversity needed for ideation
More surface area to test new techniques (e.g., approaches to housing retrofits)
Adapting interventions to localized contexts (e.g., deployment of cargo bikes for the last mile)

The Bad:

Clock
Striation in knowledge gaps
Low rate of transfer and cross-pollination - ideas lost in the cracks
Deniability based on varied contexts

While the Paris Accords, COP28, UN Climate goals, and other multilateral efforts attempt to align our outcomes and create a center point for key environmental health thresholds, there seems to be room also to ensure that our respective inputs and processes to achieve those key objectives and mitigate crossing the lines are maintained.

Is there a central body to intake various tactics and pilots, assess their efficacy, and offer technical assistance for adaptation? Could financing institutions like the IMF or World Bank play a role? Could our foreign affairs apparatus step into this function through existing embassies and intelligence networks? Given climate's centrality to national security, could this become a key role for Defense and Intelligence?

As rapidly as we dispatch F-16s to Ukraine and train their pilots on guided missile systems, we also need to similarly support exporting missions for climate policy, financing, and technology. Climate Weeks are great starts, but we need enduring, high-touch, technical channels to keep these conversations alive. There is a clear latent demand.