Just Transition in 2023: A Year in Review
We facilitated alignment between waste workers and EJ groups on issues of plastics pollution and waste, including Filipino waste workers in the Mother Earth Foundation, as well as diverse members of the International Alliance of Waste Pickers, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives and Break Free From Plastics at the UN Plastics Treaty talks in Paris and Nairobi.
We launched our just transition organizer training program “Tools for Transformative Change” with a training of trainers for allied unions and EJ groups, worked with our pilot team to finalize the facilitators’ guide in English and Spanish, and began planning trainings for labor-community coalitions across the US to advance local campaigns for a people’s economy, fight corporate climate schemes, and engage opportunities like the Green New Deal and Justice40.
Jose attended the UNFCCC “Intersessional” in Bonn and, along with numerous allies, demanded the UNFCCC stop allowing the world’s worst polluters to hijack the process. Although we avoided COP 28, we supported the organizing work of our comrades in the It Takes Roots coalition.
José spoke at Peoples’ Climate Week in NYC to disrupt the promotion of climate false solutions. At the March to End Fossil Fuels, our Hoodwinked Collaborative team distributed over 1000 Hoodwinked books to educate the broader movement on corporate climate scams.
We further engaged in the UN Global Plastics Treaty talks to help shape a binding agreement to reduce plastic pollution worldwide, taking a delegation of grassroots leaders from the EJ Communities Against Plastics coalition to collaborate with allies to advance an EJ and just transition agenda.
We continued to lead the fight against false solutions with other members of the Hoodwinked Collaborative, organizing livestream webinars such as “Celebrating Youth Climate Organizers” and “Mothering Through Climate Crisis,” sharing popular education tools on “Nature-based Solutions,” and working with allies to issue a statement denouncing carbon trading and offsets.
We rallied with community members and farmworkers to support the Campaign for Healthier Solutions’ action against the 99 Cents Only chain, and forced the company to enter ongoing dialogue with the campaign regarding the development of a corporate chemical policy.
We supported partners like Familias Unidas por la Justicia, Comunidades Aliadas Tomando Acción and the Indigenous Caucus of the Western Mining Action Network to access funding opportunities for their community-based work.
We participated in numerous movement gatherings, leading crucial strategy conversations with formations that we helped to initiate years ago, such as Climate Justice Alliance and Building Equity and Alignment for Environmental Justice, and further strengthening relationships with national and international networks like Labor Network for Sustainability, Global Grassroots Justice Alliance, La Via Campesina, and Movimiento de Afectados por Represas.