Defending and Building Just Climate Futures
The Platform for a Just Climate (formerly the Equitable & Just National Climate Platform) launched in 2019 as a new center of gravity in Washington, D.C., and successfully secured numerous historic federal policies in service of our platform vision under the Biden Administration. Our success can be in part attributed to the intentional alignment of national environmental and environmental justice organizations to advance strategic interventions.
Under the Trump Administration transition 2024, many of the hard-won federal victories – including policies, investments, and seats at the table, alongside our communities and leaders – have come under attack. Despite the growing threat, the coalition agreed we must continue our important work to advance the Platform. Based on the strategic direction of the CEOs and EDs and discussions with the 18 coalition members, the coalition decided to focus our work on a few strategic campaigns in 2025 to defend our policies, protect our communities, and build for the future.
Our work is organized under two mutually reinforcing campaign pillars, Defend and Advance, and is grounded in lessons from previous years and a coalition power analysis.
The Platform will operate as an integrated power-building coalition, with communications and narrative strategy serving as the throughline across Policy, Hill, and state-rooted climate successes. Every work product and advocacy push will reinforce a shared story: environmental protection is justice, and environmental justice is fundamental to public health and democracy.
Defending Our Climate Future
For Defend, or our Defending Our Climate Future campaign, we will collectively raise our voices in opposition to the continued attacks on federal EJ investments, protections, and communities by intervening in upcoming rollbacks to rules that protect EJ communities. We will move federal policymakers to recognize and frame environmental justice protections as essential to building the future our communities need and deserve.
The primary strategy under this campaign will require work group members to build power in Congress by deepening relationships with champions, moving persuadable supporters up the engagement ladder, and equipping members with clear narratives, credible data, and constituent-rooted stories.
Key tactics that the Platform will pursue under this campaign include:
- Regular Hill briefings tied to hearings, rollbacks, and investigations
- Coordinated letters, statements, and earned media that elevate EJ messaging
- Rapid-response engagement around anticipated rollbacks
- Hold periodic information sharing and call to action sessions to mobilize members and co-signers in educating members of congress on the coalition’s defense priorities.
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Building Just Climate Futures
Under the work of Advance campaign, or Building Just Climate Futures, we will continue to advocate for and develop grassroots-led policy frameworks emerging from states represented in the coalition. We will champion the progress of key states in advancing policies that reduce pollution in environmental justice communities and develop coalition-aligned frameworks to lay the groundwork for the next wave of federal action.
The Platform strategy under this campaign will not lead state campaigns, but will:
- Highlight and amplify EJ-led state and regional wins
- Translate those wins into nationally relevant policy frameworks
- Ensure national advocacy supports, not contradicts, local leadership
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