From Climate Justice Hub
Principles
Overview
The work of the NYC Climate Justice Hub is guided primarily by two sets of principles:
(1) The Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing developed during the 1996 conference hosted by the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice (SNEEJ) in Jemez, New Mexico.
(2) The Principles of Environmental Justice developed and adopted by the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in Washington DC in 1991.
Definitions
Along with these principles, the Hub stands by the following definitions:
Climate Justice
Climate Justice focuses on the root causes of the climate crisis through an intersectional lens of racism, classism, capitalism, economic injustice, and environmental harm. Climate justice supports a Just Transition for communities and workers away from a fossil fuel economy and focuses on making the necessary systemic changes to address unequal burdens to our communities and to realign our economy with our natural systems.
As a form of environmental justice, climate justice means that all species have the right to access and obtain the resources needed to have an equal chance of survival and freedom from discrimination. As a movement, climate justice advocates are working from the grassroots up to create real solutions for climate mitigation and adaptation that ensure the right of all people to live, learn, work, play, and pray in safe, healthy, and clean environments (A People’s Orientation to a Regenerative Economy).
Environmental Justice
Environmental justice is the international movement of low-income communities and communities of color standing in solidarity against hazardous environmental and infrastructure burdens of environmental amenities and equity confronting their communities. (NY Renews Climate and Environmental Justice Glossary)
Just Transition
Just Transition is a vision-led, unifying and place-based set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy. This means approaching production and consumption cycles holistically and waste-free. The transition itself must be just and equitable; redressing past harms and creating new relationships of power for the future through reparations. If the process of transition is not just, the outcome will never be. Just Transition describes both where we are going and how we get there. (Climate Justice Alliance)
With the creation of the NYC Climate Justice Hub, CUNY and NYC-EJA aim to highlight and reduce the adverse, disproportionate effects of climate change on low-income communities of color.
At the same time, the Hub must reckon with the history of environmental racism, capitalism, and colonialism in the nation that has seeded these injustices and disparities, starting with the seizure of land from its indigenous stewards by European colonizers. The Hub recognizes that all 25 CUNY campuses and 13 NYC-EJA member organizations rest on land originally stolen from the Ramapough-Lenape people and developed by Black and Brown people from nations around the world who were—and continue to be—exploited for their labor.
It is the responsibility of the Hub to ensure that climate justice is at the center of our work and that that work honors the environmental justice efforts and sacrifices made throughout history. Only at this juncture of climate justice and environmental justice is it possible for a just transition towards a more sustainable future for all to transpire.
