Just Transition in 2022: A Year in Review
Our newly launched Environmental Justice Communities Against Plastics coalition (including Physicians for Social Responsibility – Los Angeles, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, and Pacoima Beautiful) helped strengthen California’s new plastic pollution law while urging an end to existing state incinerator subsidies through AB1857.
We built critical relations across racialized divides in the mainstream environmental movement by hosting an online “Building Healthy Futures” summit with allies such as Clean & Healthy New York and WeACT for Environmental Justice.
We continued to work in solidarity with EJ and labor allies—including Comunidades Aliadas Tomando Acción, the Western Mining Action Network, Coming Clean, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the EJ Leadership Forum, and the EJ Health Alliance to fight false solutions and to advance just transition strategies.
We collaborated with academic institutions such as UC San Diego—mentoring students in decolonizing design—and the University of Chicago, Great Cities Institute, by publishing a peer-reviewed article on how the history and trajectory of environmental justice and just transition strategies inform urban planning.
Taking action and getting arrested at the Senate Hart Building, our executive director José Bravo and other movement leaders prompted nationwide pushback against Sen. Manchin’s “dirty deal” and polluter subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act. On Dec. 15, the deal was defeated for the third time.
We organized a popular education training around just markets, hosted by Los Jardines Institute, where participants shared a powerful co-learning on community-based solutions to eliminate toxic chemicals from dollar stores.
We co-organized four webinars and an audiobook of Hoodwinked in the Hothouse. We printed more than 25,000 copies in five different languages and handed out 3,000 of them to delegates, influencers and allies at COP27.
We organized a Workers & Communities delegation to COP27 including Central Florida Jobs with Justice, Familias Unidas por la Justicia, and United Steelworkers Local 675 as part of It Takes Roots to demand climate reparations and just transition, oppose climate militarization, and confront greenwashing by bankers and polluters.
We provided the Shut Down Adelanto Coalition with just transition strategies and guidance during a toxic tour to learn the ugly truth about pesticides being sprayed on detainees at the Adelanto Immigration and Customs Enforcement Center. We will maintain our engagement around exposure to a PFAS superfund site in the community.