In January 2018 the Board of Trustees of the Foundation announced their decision to scale back activities at the end of 2018 and undertake a planned closedown of operations, to be completed by March 2019.
The Board made this decision knowing that as a direct result of the Foundation’s activities since 2010 climate justice has gone from being effectively a taboo topic to being an approach to climate decision-making and action that is people-centered, rights-informed and fair. Climate justice is supported as a concept by a growing academic literature and in practice by new funding streams from governments and philanthropy. It is now a concept and language that different actors in the world of development, climate change and human rights coalesce around to find commonalities rather than differences.
The Foundation is grateful to all the people and organisations who have supported its work to advance climate justice. Without this broad coalition the Foundation would not have been able to play a key part in realising ten binding decisions or resolutions at the United Nations level that reflect principles of climate justice. In the document Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice 2010 – 2019, A Legacy, the key achievements are published as an acknowledgement of the people and organisations who collaborated with the Foundation to help reframe the narrative of climate change which has put issues of social justice at the centre of climate policy decision-making.