New Earth Foundation Environmental Project Funding

The Climate Change AI Innovation Grants program supports projects that address research and deployment challenges in climate change mitigation, adaptation, and climate science by leveraging AI and machine learning, while also creating publicly available datasets and tools to catalyze further work. The program enables key partnerships that accelerate the research-to-deployment cycle, creating synergies between academic researchers, nonprofits, startups and other companies, and governmental or intergovernmental organizations. Funded by the Quadrature Climate Foundation, Schmidt Futures, and Google DeepMind, with Future Earth serving as fiscal sponsor, this is one of the few dedicated grant programs specifically targeting the intersection of AI/ML and climate change. Projects typically involve climate modeling, weather prediction, emissions monitoring, energy optimization, biodiversity monitoring, and other environmental applications of machine learning. The 2026 competition opens with a full proposal deadline of September 15, 2026. The program has grown steadily since its inception, funding 23 projects to date across diverse climate domains and geographies.

The Climate Change AI Innovation Grants program supports catalytic projects using AI and machine learning for climate action, funding research and deployment challenges in climate change mitigation, adaptation, and climate science. Projects must create publicly available datasets and tools as digital public goods, and release open-source code. The program builds partnerships between academic researchers, non-profits, startups, companies, and governmental organizations to accelerate the research-to-deployment cycle. Past funded projects span climate modeling, emissions monitoring, renewable energy optimization, and disaster prediction across all continents.