“What does that tell us about the clean energy economy? It’s not driven by where the sun is. It’s driven by where the policy is favorable for clean energy development.”

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Caroline began her career in environmental finance, but as she was researching solar companies, she discovered that there was no legislation in Texas focusing on this. Even further, no candidates running for office were talking about climate policy on the campaign trail. She began volunteering on campaigns to supply them with accurate and effective information to use in their campaigns related to climate change and that led her to a career in consulting. She started working with candidates because these were real questions that they had. The conversation had changed from when Caroline was a child and she discovered that candidates did want to cover climate issues while campaigning and they just didn’t know how to.

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“Fundamentally one thing is true: climate message can help you win in any district in America.”

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People get elected on a lot of different platforms but they are not the perfect polling representation of all their constituents. That means that political representatives are often not voting on climate change in a way that aligns with the desire of the voters. To add to the issue, the messaging that gets sent to voters during a campaign is very different from what the news cycle spins out day after day about what that representative is voting on. Constituents aren’t getting the full picture of what their representatives are doing for them. The big issue with misinformation being spread intentionally today is a reflection of this problem. As Caroline started to work with candidates and saw that they were asking her what they should say around climate change, she realized she had to go all in on providing the support they truly needed - climate staffers at scale.

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“There is a massive gap between what the candidate is saying and the voters hearing something completely different.”

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Climate Cabinet is just three years old and has already been making a big impact. Caroline has learned a lot along the way, including that the political landscape around climate is shifting dramatically each year. More and more candidates are willing and interested in taking a pro-climate stance on the campaign trail. She’s also learned that a strategic plan that matches your capacity is essential in order to use the funding they are receiving effectively. With the goal to solve climate change as an organization, their strategy is to build pro-climate majorities in 30 state legislatures, 300 counties and 200 cities. Right now they have pro-climate majorities in 18 state legislatures. In order to succeed, they need to take risks. Caroline suggests that if you want to get involved in climate change policy, volunteer first. 

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