Our Story
The Platform for a Just Climate (formerly known as Equitable & Just National Climate Platform), a project of the Center for Earth, Energy & Democracy (CEED), is a national coalition working to build power for environmental justice with frontline communities and the organizations supporting them.
The Platform for a Just Climate unites environmental justice groups and national environmental organizations from across the country around a shared commitment to ending the environmental racism that has left economically disadvantaged communities, Indigenous communities, Black communities, and communities of color exposed to disproportionate levels of toxic pollution and bearing the brunt of the climate crisis.
We work to ensure those most harmed by climate change and the fossil fuel economy can actively participate in developing, winning, and implementing environmental policies that address community needs.
Our coalition has stood strong since 2019 around our shared vision for a just climate future—and Our Platform has grown to include over 300 signatory organizations from all over the country.
Our History
2018 October
The national coalition now known as the Platform for a Just Climate (originally known as the Climate Forum) comes together to address the historic exclusion of environmental justice from national climate policies. This new coalition was brought together by the Center for Earth, Energy & Democracy (CEED), the Center for American Progress (CAP) and NRDC, with support from New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance (NJEJA) and Midwest Environmental Justice Network (MWEJN).
2019 June
On Juneteenth, the Platform for a Just Climate, our founding document laying out our vision for an inclusive and just climate agenda is launched by 18 co-authors, most of whom would go on to become our coalition members. Over 50 inaugural signatories sign the platform to call for a national climate agenda centered on environmental justice.
2019 October
Platform for a Just Climate coalition members lead their first annual Advocacy Day in Washington, DC, holding several briefings with members of Congress to advocate for just climate solutions, including briefings with the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.
2020 June
House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis releases its Congressional Climate Action Plan centered on equity, justice and reducing pollution in overburdened communities, incorporating dozens of policy recommendations credited to the Platform for a Just Climate.
2021 January
President Biden signs the Executive Order 14008, launching White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC) and the Justice40 Initiative during his first week in office. Justice40 directs federal agencies to ensure at least 40% of federal climate and infrastructure investment benefits disadvantaged communities, marking a turning point in federal policy.
2021 April
The inaugural White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC) is chaired by coalition members Richard Moore, Los Jardines Institute and Peggy Shepard, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, and includes four other coalition members from the Platform for a Just Climate.
2021 November
Through a concerted advocacy and communications campaign, the Platform for a Just Climate successfully advocates for environmental justice investments in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, resulting in $66 billion in investments for Platform for a Just Climate priorities, including $5 billion for Superfund cleanup and brownfield redevelopment, more than $23 billion for clean drinking water, $15 billion to replace lead pipes, and $3.5 billion for the Weatherization Assistance Program.
2022 August
The Inflation Reduction Act is signed into law with ~$55 billion for environmental justice priorities advocated by the Platform for a Just Climate, including $3 billion for a new Environmental & Climate Justice Grant program and the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which were both informed by coalition members.
2023 May
The Platform for a Just Climate successfully advocates for limits on carbon pollution from fossil-fuel-fired power plants through the EPA Rulemaking Process, resulting in finalized carbon rules for existing coal and new gas plants.
2025 July
The Platform for a Just Climate defends key environmental justice programs from rollbacks through HR1, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” While funding was cut for the Community Change Grant Program, Air Monitoring, Clean Ports Program and Climate Pollution Reduction Grant Program, the programs themselves were not repealed and remain under attack.
2025 October
The Platform for a Just Climate hosts its first Congressional Breakfast and Reporter Breakfast in Washington DC. Members of Congress, including those from the newly-formed Senate Environmental Justice Caucus, met with coalition members from around the country, with 13 congressional offices engaged.
2026 January
Previously known as the Equitable & Just National Climate Platform, the Platform for a Just Climate announces its new brand name and logo at the start of 2026. This rebranding is accompanied by the relaunch of Our Platform, a newly redesigned version of our founding document accompanied by new artwork by Lynda Grafito.
2026 March
The Platform for a Just Climate joins and celebrates the formation of the House Environmental Justice Caucus representing a critical step toward bringing frontline communities into policymaking and ensuring that public health is no longer secondary to corporate profits.
Our Historical Foundations
We celebrate and acknowledge the historic formations, principles and frameworks that laid the foundations upon which the Platform for a Just Climate was created in 2019:
The process of developing the Platform for a Just Climate, led by our coalition members, was guided by the Principles of Environmental Justice, drafted by the delegates at the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991, and the Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing, developed at a 1996 meeting of environmental justice and national environmental organizations in Jemez, NM.
Environmental Justice is the right to a decent, safe quality of life for people of all races, incomes and cultures in the environments where we live, work, play, learn and pray.
As project manager, Center for Earth, Energy & Democracy (CEED)’s role in the Platform for a Just Climate is informed by the Energy Democracy Platform Vision, including the Ten Principles of Energy Democracy which were co-authored in 2015 by the CEED in collaboration with the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA).
Energy Democracy is a shift from the corporate, centralized fossil fuel economy to one that is governed by communities.
CEED’s approach to the Platform for a Just Climate is also guided by the Just Transition Framework, developed by Movement Generation and Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) in 2017 and the Indigenous Principles of Just Transition, developed by the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) in 2017.
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.
