2025 California Climate Resilience Funding & Policy Landscape

The outcomes of the 2024 election will have a significant impact on climate adaptation & disaster resilience priorities and funding availability in Northern California. This comes at a time when communities are facing repetitive climate-driven disasters and are fighting for the resources they need to develop, plan, and implement community-led strategies for resilience. 

At the federal level, the incoming Trump Administration has promised to roll back environmental regulations and historic funding for climate resilience & adaptation, threatened to politicize the disaster relief and recovery system, and radically reform the administrative state that has long governed how federal agencies function in support of communities. 

At the same time, voters in California approved Prop 4, a $10 billion climate bond that will fund climate projects and priorities that saw cuts in recent state budget cycles. 2025 will also see the beginning negotiations as California works to reauthorize its State Greenhouse Gad Reduction Fund. This will provide urgently needed funding to communities working to stave off the work impacts of the climate crisis. 

The split reality of communities needing to both defend progress made in recent years at the federal level and also remain ready to access state funding resources complicates an already challenging landscape for nonprofits, rural regions, and tribes working on resilience efforts. 

What hasn't changed: the often-cyclical nature of funding for disaster recovery and resilience, limited resources for early project pre-development in communities, and the need for funders to invest in the long-arc of resilience. 

Join NCG for a deep dive on: 

• What the state & federal policy landscape may look like in the coming year 
• How to balance defensive posturing alongside long-term investments in resilience 
• Opportunities to forge ahead on climate & disaster strategies while prioritizing frontline communities