2025 Year in Review: 350 Chicago Levels Up

In This Issue

• January Events

  • 1/22: 350 Speaker Series- Championing Clean Air for All: How Air Quality Affects Health

• Climate News

  • Chicago Moms Brave the Cold and Rally for Democracy

  • 2025 Marked an Important Milestone for Renewable Energy

• 350 Chicago News

  • Postcard Sorting Party Recap

  • Illinois Environmental Council Lunch and Learn Recap

• Main Article

  • 2025 Year in Review: 350 Chicago Levels Up

January Events

350 Speaker Series- Championing Clean Air for All: How Air Quality Affects Health

• Thursday, January 22, 6:00pm CST

• Via Zoom

• REGISTER HERE

Come listen to Kristina Hamilton, MPH, Director of Advocacy for Illinois and Iowa for the American Lung Association, discuss strategic advocacy approaches to advance clean air policies that protect public health and promote environmental justice. Attendees will learn how to support state and local efforts to reduce air pollution, transition to zero-emission vehicles and clean energy, and improve air quality monitoring - especially in communities most impacted by pollution and climate change.

Climate News

Chicago Moms Brave the Cold and Rally for Democracy

On January 20th, Kaitlin Cordes, President of the Board of 350 Chicago, led a group of Chicago-area moms in the freezing cold to protest the Trump administration’s authoritarian actions and their indefensible use of ICE against immigrants and citizens alike.

Kaitlin led the action with the group Moms for Democracy, and 350 Chicago was proud to help support and promote the event. While the event is not explicitly climate focused, the climate movement cannot survive without a functioning democracy, as we discussed during the ‘Hands Off’ protests.

2025 Marked an Important Milestone for Renewable Energy

During the first half of 2025, solar and wind energy produced 5,072 TWh power of electricity compared to 4,896 TWh produced by coal, marking the first time renewable energy surpassed coal-powered energy production. This represents a pivotal moment as countries continue to move away from fossil fuels and adopt cleaner sources of energy.

Most of the growth in renewables is the result of solar power becoming more accessible and affordable. For instance, China made significant investments in solar technology as discussed in our recent speaker series.

The United States is still seeing developments in solar and wind technology despite the Trump administration’s push toward fossil fuel investments. Ironically, the United States saw a surge in clean energy projects in 2025 as homeowners rushed to install solar panels before Biden-era tax credits expired. Last summer’s Sun Day Solar Fest highlights how public support of solar energy won’t be going away anytime soon.

via The Weather Channel- For The First Time Ever, Renewables Have Overtaken Coal In Global Power Generation: “We are seeing the first signs of a crucial turning point. Solar and wind are now growing fast enough to meet the world’s growing appetite for electricity,” said Małgorzata Wiatros-Motyka, Senior Electricity Analyst at Ember. Adding, “This marks the beginning of a shift where clean power is keeping pace with demand growth.”

via Time- The Clean Energy Boom You Missed This Year: “Solar and wind together accounted for 88% of new U.S. electrical generating capacity added in the first eight months of 2025, according to data released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in November.”

350 Chicago News

Postcard Sorting Party Recap

On January 4th, the Climate Safe Pensions Illinois Coalition (CSPI) gathered to sort and collate over 3,100 signed postcards collected during our joint outreach and educational efforts at events throughout Illinois. These will be delivered to Illinois policy makers over the course of 2026 during our educational outreach work to show the public support for fossil fuel divestment in Illinois.

Illinois Environmental Council Lunch and Learn Recap

On January 7th, we had a special lunch and learn webinar hosted by the Illinois Environmental Council (IEC) and featuring Adriane Johnson, Senate Chief Sponsor of the act. Members of the Climate Safe Pensions Illinois Coalition (CSPI) explained why the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act is a Win-Win-Win for Illinois.

2025 Year in Review: 350 Chicago Levels Up

by 350 Chicago Board

2025 was a pivotal year for 350 Chicago. We expanded the work we do, developing closer ties with ally organizations and coalitions such as the Climate Safe Pensions coalition, and we meaningfully advocated for pro climate policy in the state. We also reached out to more Chicagoans and Illinoisians than ever before through hosted events, protests, tabling, and of course our educational speaker series.

We also are far stronger as an organization. This was the first full year with our full time employee, Executive Director Larry Coble, who led us to be a more active organization than any year prior. We have a stronger volunteer base, a better financial position, and more active committees than ever: and even a brand new website!

Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign

In collaboration with Third Act Illinois and the Climate Reality Project Chicago, 350 Chicago took this campaign to the next level. In January, The Fossil Fuel Divestment Act was introduced to the Senate during a press conference at the Illinois State capitol building. This marked a major milestone for the Fossil Fuel Investment Campaign. Critical to gaining legislative support was the hard work of the Climate Safe Pensions Illinois coalition led by 350 Chicago, Third Act Illinois, and Climate Reality Project.

Reflecting the new strength of our coalition and relying on our incredible volunteers, we were able to completely revamp the Climate Safe Pensions Illinois Website. Public support is growing, and we now have 36 endorsing groups and counting! We met with elected officials and appointed officials across the state to educate them on divestment. We collected nearly 3000 postcards which we are hand-delivering to legislators to show them that public support for this campaign is real. You can also learn more about divestment from previous newsletter article here.

Utility Accountability Campaign

In March of 2025, 350 Chicago partnered with the Citizens Utility Board to begin our campaign to promote Utility Lobbying Reform in Illinois through the Utility Transparency Act. Because this is a less well known subject we have also been working hard to educate the public through our events, and we’ve collected nearly 2000 postcards in support of the campaign.

You can also learn more about this campaign from previous newsletter articles here and here.

Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition (ICJC)

As an organization, we continued our membership and collaboration with the ICJC. We had four volunteers attending various working groups to help develop policy and assist with grassroots outreach.

Speaker Series

350 Chicago continued our Speakers Series, hosting a wide variety of educators, policymakers, and advocates. Our most well-attended was event was the talk by 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben who discussed mass solar deployment. Our speakers covered a wide range of topics including clean energy progress in China and India, climate change’s affect on the oceans, climate action planning, oceans, climate transitions, and many more. We would like to especially thank board member Rich Foss who did the lion’s share of work finding, cajoling, and pushing to promote these speakers.

We have many of the speakers on our YouTube page, and still have more to add. You can watch the Bill McKibben video here:

Actions and Protests

350 Chicago was on the ground more than ever before, joining, hosting, and promoting events throughout the year. We frequently worked with sister organizations such as Third Act Illinois where we collaborated on the Sun Day 2025 Solar Fest. 350 Chicago’s communications team created some incredible graphics and posts that the event used for social media promotion, and our volunteers helped with setup and take down to make sure the event ran smoothly.

We also joined the major rallies in Chicago such as Hands Off Day of Action in April, and the No Kings Protest in October to demand climate action from our elected representatives. At the No Kings protest we ‘adopted a block’ along with the Illinois Sierra Club and Third Act Illinois, where we received a lot of fist bumps, compliments and thank you’s for our pro-climate agenda. The Third Act dancers from our block were even featured on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart!

Communications and Social Media

350 Chicago greatly expanded our reach online and through social media. This was only possibly by super-volunteers such as Abby, tireless leader of the Communications Committee, Zack and Cole for completely revamping our much-improved website, Justina and Jane for their help creating incredible graphics, and Zack and Christine for their help with this newsletter. Because of these volunteers you can find us on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Bluesky, Meetup, and of course this newsletter, which added over 400 subscribers over the course of the year to get us to nearly 2,700.

We would like to give a particularly large thank you to all readers of this newsletter from editor Josh Horwitz and especially those generous enough to become paid subscribers and support what we do. We are working hard to make sure this is a useful platform for all climate activists in the Chicago area, and we greatly appreciate your support.

Outreach and Volunteering

We gained a lot of momentum for our campaigns this year thanks to a strategy focused on attending various events around the Chicagoland area, where we attended over 30 events, mostly over the summer when Chicagoans are out and about. 350 Chicago could be found everywhere, at farmers markets, eco-festivals, community meetups, and even the book tour for the bassist Adam Met. Each different engagement gave us an opportunity to connect with new audiences, collect postcards in support of our campaigns, and discuss the work we do with the public.

Executive Director Larry Coble’s tireless work made it possible for us to attend so many events, but we also want to highlight incredible volunteers like Abby, Joseph, Mary, Zack, Anne, and of course Yogi the Dog!

If you want to find us at one of these events in 2026 just keep an eye on this newsletter, and if you know of an event that would be a good one for us to attend, please reach out to [email protected] with information.

Fundraising

In 2025, 350 Chicago secured a stronger financial footing than we have ever had before. And this success has come in the face of an extremely challenging environment for environmental nonprofits, which has resulted in the national chapter of 350.org suspending US operations. But this change does not affect our chapter, which does not and has never relied on support from the national chapter, and instead relies on the support of the people of Chicago and Illinois.

In 2025 the public came through, providing hundreds of individual donations supporting the work we do. We have new classes of donors including our new Climate Sustainer monthly donors, and paid subscribers of this newsletter, both of which are new avenues we created in 2025 for people to support us on an ongoing basis.

We also received a two-year grant for $60,000 from the Ben and Jerry’s foundation and an extremely generous anonymous donor has provided a grant for $54,000 over three years. The members of the Fundraising teams deserve lots of credit for creating materials during our various fundraising drives and grant writing efforts, including volunteers Ryan, Lawrence, Cathy, Ramya, and Adrian. But 350 Chicago would like to offer a special shout out to Board President Kaitlin Cordes for her effort in securing our larger grants and donations. Her leadership and dedication was invaluable to allowing us to level up our financial position in 2025.

Conclusion

As you can see, 2025 was a turning point year for 350 Chicago, but we aren’t done yet. We have big plans to push climate in Chicago and Illinois in 2026, despite whatever news might come out of Washington DC. And if you want to help, just get involved!