Driving Ambitious Climate Policy
Strong, durable policies enable us to simultaneously tackle climate change and protect nature in North America.

We need government policies that will incentivize and accelerate the speed at which we can scale climate solutions.
TNC has decades of experience creating, implementing and defending policies that make it possible to scale effective conservation solutions. We’ve translated that experience to do the same for ambitious climate and clean energy policies. We have the knowledge, science and technology required to slash carbon emissions and expand clean energy in ways that will create new jobs, diversify our energy sources and reinvigorate local economies.
We are working on federal, regional and state-level policies to reduce emissions and speed up the deployment of climate solutions and clean energy technologies. These policies aim to drive new investments, remove barriers or create better conditions for climate action and scale up new and emerging technologies across a range of clean energy technologies—such as solar, onshore and offshore wind, batteries, nuclear energy, engineered carbon management, sustainable aviation fuel, geothermal energy and more.
We are also developing new strategies and exploring opportunities that center the input of people so we can better support local needs.

“We need to find pragmatic solutions to climate change that work with people and nature to lower barriers and create economy-wide change.” —Laura Brannen, Federal Climate Policy Lead, The Nature Conservancy
Our focus is on creating, implementing and defending policies with the greatest climate impact.
Our Priorities
Create:
- Facilitating the creation and adoption of new policies that will reduce emissions and make it easier for good energy projects to come online.
- Making sure that new clean energy projects and development incorporate the input of communities and considerations for nature.
Implement:
Removing any roadblocks that stand in the way of effectively implementing existing climate and clean energy policies.
Helping communities, tribes and states access the money made available by existing legislation.
Defend:
Defending existing policies from repeal and rollbacks.
Our Policy Recommendations
Explore our Permitting Reform Report
We need to modernize our permitting process in order to build enough infrastructure to meet the energy demands of today while still meeting the needs of nature and people.
Recent Climate Policy Wins

Climate policies are powering change in the Appalachians
After flooding impacted Kentucky in 2022, Bobby Stallard, a former coal miner, embraced solar power. IRA tax credits allowed homeowners like Stallard to claim a federal tax credit of 30% of the cost. Most of these tax credits have now been repealed.
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Learn how TNC is advancing climate policies that benefit people and the planet.