Frequently Asked Questions
Applications Open
November 1, 2025
Application Deadline
January 15, 2026, at 11:59 PM IDLW (UTC−12:00) or sooner, if the 500-Application cap is reached
20 Finalists Announced
Spring 2026
10 Winners Announced
Summer
One of the ways that the Keeling Curve Prize is unique and wonderful is that we accept applications from a broad range of innovators and climate thinkers, ranging from those elevating tried and true traditional solutions to those pursuing new high-tech frontiers. Whether you are an entrepreneur/startup, a university research group, a non-profit or community leader, or an intrapreneur at a large company or organization, we want to hear about the best initiatives to reduce emissions or increase uptake of greenhouse gases. We want to activate and accelerate climate solutions from many different corners of the world and voices.
It can be hard for a project or pilot program in a single location to be competitive. However, if a single installation or local project is an incremental component of a broader strategy, of a scale that can compete with programs delivering a broader application, or will be scalable in the future, it may be competitive. You must be able to answer; why does your local or single-installation project have the potential to be transformative beyond its current use?
Applicants can contact Climate Curve with questions regarding their application by emailing kcp@climatecurve.org. To protect the integrity of the scoring process and the prize, applicants should not communicate directly with Analysts, Judges, Advisory Council Members, Board Members, or certain Staff regarding their application.
No. The scoring matrix is kept confidential.
Yes. If you applied for the prize and did not win, you are encouraged to re-apply, so long as your project is still active or you submit another project that you believe is a better fit for the prize.
Only check additional categories on your application if you feel that your solution can show a tangible impact to emissions reduction or uptake across multiple categories. It is useful for our team to know whether your solution applies to one or multiple categories, but more categories are not always better if they are not relevant to your solution and its impact.
No. Applications that are not complete will not be considered. We need you to answer all questions as thoroughly and accurately as possible.
While we accept and encourage applications from around the world, we believe that the accurate translation of responses is critical and best left to you, the applicant, and the translation resources available to you. This keeps our process equitable and eliminates any risk of inaccurate or improper translations. If you choose to submit a video as an optional attachment to your application and wish to provide it in your own language, we will happily accept it with English subtitles.
The Keeling Curve Prize welcomes and encourages applications from all over the world where Climate Curve distributes funds. The Keeling Curve Prize is obligated to follow U.S.laws and regulations in accordance with sanctions enforced by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The United States currently has comprehensive sanctions on Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and specific regions of Ukraine (Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk), which broadly prohibit transactions. Additionally, the US has targeted sanctions on countries like Belarus, Russia, Syria, and Venezuela, along with many others, which restrict specific activities like exports or financial dealings.Transactions with any person on the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List (SDN List) are also prohibited. The list of sanctioned countries is not static and changes depending on US foreign policy, so it's best to check the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) website (ofac.treasury.gov) for the most current information on U.S. sanctions programs and the SDN list.
The carbon accounting may not be as straightforward for some projects, particularly in the Social & Cultural Pathways category, but the most successful applicants will be those who can show that behavioral change has occurred as a result of their actions, and that those behavioral changes have produced quantifiable emissions reductions or increased carbon uptake. Sometimes, these can be estimates, but with a logical calculation methodology and clearly stated assumptions. So if a social or cultural initiative's participants are X% less likely to engage in a certain carbon-emitting activity or have attested that they have reduced their carbon emissions activities in some concrete way as a result of participating in the initiative, and there are generally known estimates for those carbon-emitting activities, Social & Cultural Pathways applicants can provide data-driven estimates of how they feel that their actions are helping reduce emissions or increase carbon uptake to solve the climate crisis. This is just one example. There are other ways to quantify as well. Please cite any sources, scientific literature or direct measurement results used in your responses. We should be able to clearly follow your logic on how your project reduces or sequesters GHG emissions.
Although the KCP does not explicitly endorse any specific method or guide for quantifying GHG emissions impacts, below we provide a list of some resources that may help applicants (in no particular order):
CRANE Tool: CRANE is a tool built to help assess the emissions reduction potential of different technologies.
Greenhouse Gas Protocols: GHG Protocols has compiled a list of Life Cycle Databases offering available third-party databases to assist users in collecting data for product life cycle and corporate value chain (scope 3) GHG inventories.
ICAT Series of Assessment Guides: This collection of resources on assessing the impacts of climate policies and actions includes guides on renewable energy, buildings, agriculture, forests, transport, sustainable development and transformational change, a category that may of particular interest to applicants seeking to quantify emissions reductions in the Social & Cultural Pathways category.
Do you know of other resources that have helped you quantify the emissions reductions or greenhouse gas uptake of your solution? Share them with us at info@climatecurve.org.
You can find more information about this conversion on the Energy Information Administration or EPA pages.
To prevent any unwarranted access or disclosure of private application information, all Keeling Curve Prize staff, analysts, judges, Advisory Council members, and relevant partners sign confidentiality and conflict of interest agreements. Per the prize eligibility and requirements, Climate Curve reserves the right to disseminate information about your project at its discretion.
In 2026, we will be using the assistance of AI to determine which applications meet our basic eligibility and thorough completion high quality criteria. This is the only point in the evaluative process where we use AI tools. Your privacy and data protection are important to us and your information will not be fed back into a public model.
The Keeling Curve Prize was established in recognition that the world needs to act quickly on climate and that there are effective solutions being implemented right now all across the globe. The KCP's aim is to accelerate and celebrate these solutions by honoring the very best climate actions worldwide and enhancing their efforts. We do this by providing not only financial resources, but exposure, promotion, and a supporting network to elevate their success.
The needed solutions for our climate challenge are broad in scope and scale, and the Keeling Curve Prize is equally dynamic.
The Keeling Curve Prize is a program of Climate Curve (formerly known as the Global Warming Mitigation Project), a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.
The Keeling Curve Prize is currently funded by private donations.