Chesapeake Climate Action Network

The Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) is the first grassroots, nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to fighting global warming in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Its mission is to foster a rapid societal switch to clean energy and energy-efficient products, joining similar efforts worldwide to address global warming.

Background

CCAN Director Mike Tidwell on Quirauk Mountain advocating for clean energy

The Chesapeake Climate Action Network was officially launched on July 1, 2002 with a seed grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. For more than a year prior to that date, director Mike Tidwell was organizing and advocating around global warming issues in the Maryland/Virginia/DC region. Principle among these early activities was the conversion of Mike’s home almost entirely to renewable energy and the initiation of Saturday open houses every other month. These clean energy open houses drew early supporters to the cause and helped launch CCAN’s email/networking database.

Since its inception, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network has been central to every climate and clean energy victory in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. Working with a large and growing network of allies, the group has helped pass the Offshore Wind Bill in Maryland^[1] , one of the strongest statewide carbon caps in the country in Maryland, Clean Cars bills in Maryland and D.C,^[2] renewable energy standard bills in Maryland, DC, and Virginia. Through ligitation, CCAN has helped reduce mercury pollution from a coal plant in Wise County by 94 percent. The group was also instrumental in shutting down several of the region's coal plants and preventing the construction of new fossil fuel projects.

Phil Radford, Executive Director of Greenpeace, called CCAN “the premier organization working for clean energy and to stop global warming in the mid-Atlantic.”

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