Carter Center Responds to Challenge of Climate Change

The effects of climate change have the greatest impact on the most vulnerable communities, often the same communities where The Carter Center works. In response, the Center is seeking ways to reduce its own impact on the planet while helping communities adapt.

“For almost 40 years, The Carter Center has been at the forefront of waging peace and fighting disease. Today this legacy is intricately linked with climate change,” said Ileana Resendez, the Center’s director of strategy, innovation, and learning. “Climate change not only undermines the realization of human rights and human development but also worsens social, cultural, economic, political, and legal inequalities.”

To begin to address the problem, the Center started integrating climate change into its existing programming. The extractive industries governance project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for instance, reoriented its support for more equitable and accountable management of mining to focus on minerals needed for the transition to renewable energy.

The Center is similarly integrating climate change considerations into other programming, including how it will impact Carter Center objectives in pursuing peace and the elimination of neglected tropical diseases. 

To further shape programming to address climate change and to reduce the Center’s carbon footprint, it hired climate change expert Matthew Brubacher.  

“For me, this comes down to how humans perceive risk,” Brubacher said. “Although we often only act on the risks we see today, when addressing climate change it is important for organizations to act preemptively, because waiting only results in higher costs and greater harm.”

Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, trap heat from the sun, raising the temperature in the atmosphere, Brubacher said. As greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, global temperatures rise increasingly quickly. These changes have numerous consequences that directly impact the Center’s work.

In 2024, climate change strengthened a drought in Zambia and floods in Nigeria and disrupted electricity supplies in Carter Center country offices. The Carter Center is responding by creating more electricity autonomy, including with renewable energy, so the offices can operate with fewer interruptions.

The Carter Center recently conducted an audit of how much greenhouse gas it produces in its daily operations worldwide. The audit identified several areas where reductions could be achieved, including travel, procurement, country office operations, and energy use at the Center’s Atlanta headquarters.

Carter Center leadership is starting to implement a range of actions Brubacher has proposed that could cut the organization’s overall carbon emissions by half by 2030 and put the Center within reach of the international goal of net zero emissions by 2050.

“As greenhouse gases cause harm whose severity increases over time, it is important to reduce emissions now,” Brubacher said.

By reducing its contribution to the problem, The Carter Center could contribute to the solution.

“The Carter Center has an opportunity to be a leader among international organizations on this pressing issue,” Brubacher said. “If we make the necessary changes, we can send a signal to our suppliers, our partners, and our communities that we are changing business as usual to make a real difference.”