It has been a remarkable first year for the Global Center for Climate Justice.

We started with an ambitious vision in January, and since then our intrepid staff, fellows and partners have come together amid this time of crisis to launch the Center and to help build a global movement for climate justice. Our work is inspired by an emancipatory vision of how climate change can serve as a catalyst for transforming society and creating a more just and sustainable future for all. 

 In 2021, we found a permanent office in Boston, and have brought eighteen of the leading voices for climate justice in the world to serve as Fellows. Our team has produced two groundbreaking reports on Factory Farming and Green New Deals, drawing on numerous interviews with community members and practitioners. We launched our newsletter Praxis for the Planet, which has already produced more than 17 issues and covered global climate topics from the International Criminal Court, the misdeeds of the polluter-industrial complex, food sovereignty, military divestment, voter suppression and so much more.

Our team worked hard to create our fantastic Center website, social media presence, and truly one-of-a-kind Green New Deal Resource Hub. The Hub supports structurally transformative local Green New Deals; shares innovative policies and programs; and connects national and international GND coalitions with one another. The Hub is a place where cities and organizations can co-create a GND support network and learn from each other’s challenges and successes. We are blown away to have grown our network this past year by many hundreds of activists and organizations.

The aim of the Center is to serve as a catalyst for building a multi-racial, multi-class climate justice movement capable of taking on the most powerful corporate polluters in the world. Our research, networking and bridge-building strategies are informed by an intersectional analysis on how systemic racism, class exploitation, gender oppression, human rights violations, and neocolonialism are interrelated and mutually reinforcing.

We’re about elevating and sharing transformative solutions that demonstrate an emancipatory climate justice politics which seeks to liberate our communities from structures of economic exploitation, political domination, cultural oppression, and ecological degradation. Our goal is to uplift the work of activists, frontline communities, academics, and practitioners, show how we all have a common purpose, and provide a platform to help movements for climate justice work collaboratively to create an equitable and sustainable future.

I want to give a hearty shout-out to all our team members this past year. Launching the Center, the websites – all our networking and successes would not have been possible without your enthusiasm and dedication to climate justice. Special thanks to Chuck Collins at the Institute for Policy Studies for your support, strategy insights, and office space. Thank you to everyone who contributed to our work – through interviews, newsletter pieces, art and design, outreach and much more. You can move fast alone, but to go far you must go together - and our broad achievements in 2021 show the power and potential of this community. My deepest appreciation for you all.

We’re taking a much-needed rest over the New Year, but we’ll soon be back, and we’re looking forward to becoming an even better movement support organization in 2022! We will be co-hosting a series of key Green New Deal discussions and launching many of the reports we’ve been working on this past fall.

Stay healthy, stay engaged, and stay in touch!

Nina Schlegel, Executive Director

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