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frontline communities
Climate Justice Is Under Siege; Help Us Defend It
Why we can’t afford to lose the progress frontline communities have built.
Aug 26, 2025
The climate justice infrastructure dedicated to serving vulnerable communities across the United States took decades to build. And it is now at risk.
After nearly 20 years working in frontline communities on environmental justice and community development, I joined Emerald Cities Collaborative as president and CEO in April 2022. Hope around renewed commitments to climate justice, community resilience, and economic opportunities was palpable, as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act had just been signed into law shortly after my start. With an influx of federal investments and mandates for racial equity, the promise of that moment energized the climate justice and environmental justice movements.
Today, a coordinated attack on the environmental nonprofit sector and diversity, equity, and inclusion threatens to dismantle the physical and social support networks that serve frontline communities. It is imperative that we understand what’s at stake, who benefits from the current infrastructure, and what the consequences of inaction could be.
Climate justice infrastructure provides the framework for implementing equitable climate investments for all that advance racial justice, economic justice, and environmental justice. This infrastructure includes the physical investments—such as green buildings, solar panels, green infrastructure—and the social supports necessary to ensure their equitable implementation. From community organizing to capacity building for grassroots nonprofits and workforce development programs, environmental nonprofits serve as the backbone of this social infrastructure. These efforts address both climate change and the systemic inequality that leads to disproportionate impacts on vulnerable communities.
We must stand up for nonprofits and the future that they help build—a climate future that is not only green but just.
Significant public and private investments in greener, more resilient energy, water, food, and housing infrastructure—driven by the urgency of climate change—created an unprecedented opportunity to address the environmental, income, wealth, and health disparities within low-income communities and communities of color. Realizing the full potential of these rapidly accelerating investments required a coordinated strategy that integrated local coalition building, policy, project, workforce, and small business development support. This is where the environmental nonprofits stepped in. Environmental nonprofits provided their expertise, on-the-ground leadership, capacity building, and connective tissue to support community-led climate projects, advocacy, and policy.
The breadth of organizations building this critical climate justice infrastructure is remarkable—from national nonprofits and statewide advocacy groups to grassroots organizations and volunteer community groups. We are grateful for their commitment! At Emerald Cities Collaborative (ECC), our history, experience, and dedication to climate justice, along with our support for coalitions and partnerships, equity-centered clean energy policies, and economic inclusion efforts, uniquely positioned us to serve as an intermediary within the broader ecosystem. ECC deployed a coordinated strategy of local coalition building, policy education, project implementation, workforce initiatives, and contractor development to connect disadvantaged communities nationally and in our primary regions (Northwest, Northern California, Southern California, DC-Maryland-Virginia, and Northeast) to the growing clean energy economy. We connected federal and state funding to grassroots implementation and translated new federal initiatives into community-accessible dialogue. The overarching goal was to ensure that the climate and economic benefits of the emerging clean economy were reachable to low-income communities and communities of color.
As a result of the efforts of national nonprofits, community-based organizations, and institutions, many organizations and communities historically left out were able to access federal funding for community climate investments, many for the first time. Communities that have borne the brunt of environmental injustice have benefited from stronger leadership, enhanced organizational capacity, and new tools for community education and organizing.
These gains are all at risk due to the growing attack on environmental nonprofits, the rollback of climate policies, and the disintegration of environmental justice funding. Legal and reputational attacks, such as naming Emerald Cities Collaborative in the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Exploring the Green Group Giveaway Behind the Biden-Harris Environmental Justice Programs report, demonstrate how politically motivated attacks are being used to sway public opinion. This, coupled with the outright illegal termination of environmental justice grants, has had a chilling effect on our work.
However, the impacts are not evenly distributed. Grassroots organizations and BIPOC-led nonprofits are disproportionately vulnerable to these attacks compared with large national organizations with greater resources and political capital. Fear and misinformation have caused some philanthropic funders to pull back. Organizations are being forced to divert resources from mission-critical work to legal defense and crisis communications. And this does not include the mental and emotional toll that environmental justice and climate justice leaders are experiencing.
The stakes are high. Without the valuable work of these organizations, climate solutions may revert to top-down, extractive models that center profit over community. The loss of high-road jobs, apprenticeships, and clean energy workforce programs, along with increased vulnerability to extreme climate events, will unduly affect frontline communities already facing the greatest risk. At the same time, the voices of Black, Indigenous, and immigrant-led movements are in danger of being systematically excluded from the climate conversation.
For us to meet our national climate goals and the just transition agenda, we need strong local, community-driven infrastructure. How can we ensure that the momentum for equitable climate investments in frontline communities is not entirely lost? Will we use this moment to accelerate climate justice—or allow fear and misinformation to dismantle it?
Now is the time for philanthropy, government, and the public to stand in solidarity with national and frontline organizations. Philanthropy must fund general operating support and legal protections for national BIPOC-led and frontline nonprofits. We must resist and roll back state-level attacks on nonprofit speech and operations, as well as the easing of climate policies. And we must educate audiences, donors, and lawmakers about the irreplaceable role of climate justice organizations.
The attack on climate justice infrastructure is about PEOPLE, PROGRESS, and PRINCIPLES! We must stand up for nonprofits and the future that they help build—a climate future that is not only green but just. We must stand up for communities that are resilient and thriving, not just surviving. The alternative is not an option.
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'Right Thing to Do': FERC Delays Controversial LNG Export Terminal
"We are happy about the delay, but these projects don't ever need to be approved and neither does any other LNG facility," one frontline advocate said.
Dec 04, 2024
Frontline communities along the Gulf Coast were granted a "temporary reprieve" last week when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission moved to pause its approval of the controversial Calcasieu Pass 2 liquefied natural gas export terminal while it conducts an assessment of its impact on air quality.
FERC approved Venture Global's CP2 in late June despite opposition from local residents who say the company's nearly identical Calcasieu Pass terminal has already wracked up a history of air quality violations and disturbed ecosystems and fishing grounds in Louisiana's Cameron Parish, harming health and livelihoods.
"This order reveals that FERC recognizes that CP2 LNG's environmental impacts are too great to pass through any real scrutiny" Megan Gibson, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), said in a statement on Monday.
"FERC's pause on construction may give us some temporary reprieve, but this project never should have been authorized in the first place."
FERC's decision follows a request for a rehearing of its June decision filed by frontline residents and community groups including For a Better Bayou and Fishermen Involved in Sustaining Our Heritage (FISH) as well as the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council. In their request, the groups and individuals pointed to errors the commission had made in its approval decision.
"With this order, it seems FERC is finally willing to acknowledge that it has not done enough to properly consider the cumulative harm on communities caused by building so many of these LNG export terminals so close together," Nathan Matthews, a Sierra Club senior attorney, said in a statement. "Prohibiting construction of CP2 LNG while FERC takes another look at the environmental impact of this massive, polluting facility is the right thing to do."
"Still," Matthews continued, "FERC must take concrete steps to properly evaluate the true scope of the dangers posed to communities from gas infrastructure moving forward and avoid making unwarranted approvals in the future."
FERC's decision comes over four months after the D.C. Circuit Court remanded the commission's approval of Commonwealth LNG, also in Louisiana, over concerns that it had not fully assessed the impacts of that project's air pollution emissions. Now, frontline advocates are urging FERC to do its due diligence as it weighs the environmental impacts of CP2.
"Through the lenses of optical gas imaging, we've seen massive plumes of toxic emissions, undeniable proof that these projects poison the air we breathe," James Hiatt, director of For a Better Bayou, said of LNG export facilities. "Modeling must use the latest data from the most local sources to fully capture the harm these facilities inflict on Cameron Parish. Anything less is a betrayal of our community. FERC must choose justice over profit and stop sacrificing people for polluters."
Gibson of SELC said that FERC had already repeated some of the errors in its CP2 approval in its new order.
"This continued failure to fulfill its regulatory duty is not just an oversight—it is a failure to protect vulnerable communities and our economy from the real potential harms of this massive export project," Gibson said.
FERC's decision comes as the fate of the LNG buildout itself hangs in the balance. The Biden administration's Department of Energy is currently rushing to complete its renewed assessment of whether or not LNG exports serve the public interest. Environmental and frontline groups have argued that they do not because of local pollution, the fact that they would raise domestic energy bills, and their contribution to the climate emergency. CP2 alone would spew 8,510,099 metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent per year, which is about the same as adding 1,850,000 new gas cars to the road.
While President-elect Donald Trump has promised to "drill, baby, drill" and is likely to disregard any Biden administration conclusions, a strong outgoing statement against LNG exports would help bolster legal challenges to Trump energy policy.
At the same time, Bill McKibben pointed out in a column on Tuesday that the administration's pause on LNG export approvals while it updates its public interest criteria has acted to slow the industry's expansion, and that FERC's reconsideration of CP2 could add to this delay.
"The vote for the new review is 4-0, and bipartisan," McKibben wrote. "It could slow down approvals for the project till, perhaps, the third quarter of next year. And that's good news, because the rationale for new LNG exports shrinks with each passing month, as the gap between the price of clean solar, wind, and battery power, and the price of fossil fuel, continues to grow."
Ultimately, frontline Gulf Coast advocates want to see the LNG buildout halted entirely.
"I, along with the fishermen in Cameron, Louisiana, know firsthand how harmful LNG exports are, and see the total disregard they have for human life as they poison our families and seafood," said FISH founder Travis Dardar, an Indigenous fisherman in Cameron, Louisiana. "FERC's pause on construction may give us some temporary reprieve, but this project never should have been authorized in the first place. As far as anyone who believes in the fairytale of LNG being cleaner, we have paid with our communities and livelihoods. It's time to break these chains and turn away from this false solution."
Roisheta Ozaine, a prominent anti-LNG activist and founder of the Vessel Project of Louisiana, said that she, as a mother in an environmental justice community, saw "firsthand how LNG facilities prioritize profit over the well-being of our families. Commonwealth and CP2 are no different."
"We are happy about the delay, but these projects don't ever need to be approved and neither does any other LNG facility," Ozane continued. "My children are suffering from health conditions that threaten their daily lives, all while regulatory agencies and elected officials turn a blind eye. It's time for our leaders to put people before profit and prioritize the health of our communities over the pollution that harms us. We deserve a future where our children's health is safeguarded, not sacrificed."
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Let's Make a Green Energy Transition Without the Dirty Energy Mistakes
In the race to secure the supply for this urgent transition, we cannot afford to follow in the footsteps of the fossil fuel industry’s status quo where profits were put before communities and our air and water.
Nov 27, 2023
As the world grapples with the climate crisis driven by extracting and burning fossil fuels, clean technologies—wind farms, solar panels, and electric vehicles—are essential tools in fighting back. But these technologies cannot be ramped up at the speed and scale that we need without the extraction of minerals such as copper, nickel, and lithium.
This week, over 2000 leaders in the mining, energy, and government sectors will meet in London to discuss this issue, and how to tackle it. As demand skyrockets for these minerals as we develop clean energy and as the industry innovates new technologies, it is imperative that around the world, government leaders implement strong policies and regulations to avoid the problems perpetuated by the fossil fuel industry.
As more electric cars hit the road and more wind turbines are erected at sea, now is the time to right the decades-old problems of these extractive industries, including mining.
In the race to secure the supply for this urgent transition, we cannot afford to follow in the footsteps of the fossil fuel industry’s status quo where profits were put before communities and our air and water. As more electric cars hit the road and more wind turbines are erected at sea, now is the time to right the decades-old problems of these extractive industries, including mining.
While there have been many innovations in the mining sector, like drying mine tailings for their safe disposal, extracting lithium from geothermal brines, and reusing the industry’s old mining waste to turn into minerals used in electric car batteries, the mining industry has still caused—and continues to cause—harm to the environment and frontline communities. This includes polluting air and water, exploiting workers, and standing in the way of necessary reforms despite the many readily available technologies and practices that ensure good stewardship.
Consumers expect products to be sustainably created—electric vehicles included. As we transition to clean energy and clean transportation, industry must embrace innovation and strong safeguards to increase efficiency in mineral use, reduce the need for mining, and ensure communities and workers up and down the supply chain are protected.
There are a number of solutions being deployed right now to meet the increasing demand for minerals used in electric car batteries without having to rely on more and more mining. New technology—like smaller batteries—and strong circularity policies have the potential to make batteries that are more efficient, and nearly halve the demand for minerals by 2050, reducing the need for more mining. Committing to scale and using these best practices consistently would alleviate much of the environmental harm we’re seeing.
Consumers of electric cars are expecting sustainable practices from mine to vehicle, as well as the prioritization of clean air, safe water, and healthy communities.
With better mineral traceability—which proves minerals’ origin and steps from mining to downstream uses—mining companies and the businesses that buy what they extract will be able to complete sustainability certifications, bringing accountability to the process, ensuring the minerals are mined in a way that is as environmentally and ethically sourced as possible. There are international guidelines to follow, as well—the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance has a set of standards to assess mines and help ensure automakers can purchase minerals that they know they can trust to be as sustainable and justly extracted as possible.
Better sourcing, coupled with policies like the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act and international mining standards are all increasing the efficiency and sustainability of cleantech from batteries to solar panels. These are all just a start. More work must be done to include Indigenous and other frontline communities in the minerals value chain to address human rights issues, governance needs, and local environmental impacts while providing economic opportunities in this transition. Regulations, standards, innovations, and technological improvements must be scaled up and deployed and made a key part of the conversation about electric cars at the local, regional, national, and global levels.
Consumers of electric cars are expecting sustainable practices from mine to vehicle, as well as the prioritization of clean air, safe water, and healthy communities. As global leaders gather in London later this month, they have the opportunity to make the future of electric transportation as sustainable as possible and shape this transition in a way that serves communities on the ground, spurs economic growth, and combats the climate crisis, rather than make the same mistakes as the fossil fuel industry.
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