TFECJ 2024: Honor the Work. Continue the Work
The 2024 Transatlantic Forum for Environmental and Climate Justice took place November 1, at Georgetown University’s Mortara Center for International Studies. More than 50 participants joined the all-day event featuring dialogues with leading voices in environmental and climate justice from the United States and Germany and interactive workshops with grassroots organizers and community advocates.
This year’s forum was honored to welcome keynote speakers Sharon Lavigne, founder of Rise St. James, the grassroots organization fighting back against the petrochemical industry in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, Luisa Neubauer, prominent voice of Germany’s youth-powered climate justice movement, and filmmaker and lead organizer for Germany’s Fridays for Future Helena Marschall; and workshop facilitators Analyah Schlaeger dos Santos, Tobias März, and Terri Chapman.
Welcome remarks from the Head of the German Embassy’s Economic and Finance Department, Jean Froehly and Karim Marshall, Senior Advisor at the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, underscored the importance of community leadership, both for issues of climate and environment and for transatlantic relations.
The TFECJ 2024 comprised two keynote conversations and two workshops that sought to position successes in the environmental and climate justice movements as the launchpad for the path forward. Video excerpts from the dialogues and pamphlets highlighting workshopped ideas are coming.
In Dialogue: Intercultural exchange at the grassroots
The most consequential advances for environmental and climate justice in Germany and the United States begin with organizers and activists on the ground. The forum’s opening and closing “In Dialogue” sessions were candid conversations with leaders from each country whose work at the local level has transformed the way we understand environmental and climate justice.
In the morning, we spoke with Sharon Lavigne, recipient of the 2022 Laetare Medal and 2021 Goldman Environmental Prize, recently named to the TIME100 list of Most Influential People. Since 2018, she has organized residents of St. James Parish to stop the toxic industrial pollution devastating her community, raising awareness of systemic environmental racism, winning in court, and inspiring advocates across the world to join the fight. Learn more about the work of Rise St. James here.
The afternoon “In Dialogue” session brought together two of Germany’s most prominent voices from the youth-powered climate justice movement, Luisa Neubauer and Helena Marschall. Both Luisa, recognized by Forbes and TIME as an emerging global leader and the named-plaintiff in the landmark “Neubauer v. Germany” case that established the German federal government’s responsibility to undertake substantive climate action, and Helena, film director and veteran organizer of Europe’s largest demonstrations since the fall of the Berlin Wall, became active through the massive Fridays for Future and School Strike for Climate actions. Their work today builds on that legacy, developing democratic coalitions around climate, social justice, and labor movements.
Workshops: Connecting local action to global change
Two interactive workshops complemented this year’s dialogues. Jointly-facilitated by Freiburg-based speaker, organizer, and Last Generation activist Tobias März and Extinction Rebellion DC‘s Terri Chapman, the first workshop asked how individual and collective actions at the local level can make a lasting difference. How do we create momentum, build coalitions, and improve on-the-ground conditions for our communities?
The afternoon workshop was led by Analyah Schlaeger dos Santos and focused on addressing questions of environmental and climate justice as community. Our individual lived experiences bring us into the room. Some are fighting for policy change, some work for food security, and some seek commitments to climate loss and damage. How do we bring those voices and motivations together, uniting them for a shared vision of environmental and climate justice?
POCACITO hosted the Transatlantic Forum for Environmental and Climate Justice in partnership with the BMW Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University and with support from Extinction Rebellion DC and the Heinrich Böll Stiftung in Washington, DC.
The Forum was made possible by the German Embassy Washington.