Presentation Title
Building the Climate Justice Movement - A Field Manual to Increase Climate Activism
Presentation Type
Oral Presentation
Abstract
Building the Climate Justice Movement
Jill MacIntyre Witt Masters Candidate, Department of Environmental Studies
Grace Wang, Ph.D., Department of Environmental Studies
Huxley College of the Environment, Western Washington University
Governments from around the world have been meeting annually for over twenty years to determine solutions for addressing global climate change. At the COP 21 Climate Summit in Paris, 196 governments agreed that carbon emissions must be lowered and each country reported their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) for lowering carbon emissions. Now it is up to civil society to hold governments not only accountable to their commitment, but to also urge bolder action since their contributions are not adequate to lower emissions to a level suitable for a livable future. While citizens around the world are becoming more aware of the climate crisis, a global justice movement can play a critical role to move more people to climate action in order to pressure governments to act. This research project focuses on how to increase climate activism through a compilation of strategies and best practices in the form of a field manual to help inform individuals and organizations on ways to move people to climate activism. A Climate Activist Survey was distributed to climate activists that attended the Paris COP 21 Climate Summit in order to gain a better understanding of what activists are currently doing to increase climate activism, what they plan to do in the future to help make more of a difference, and what they feel are barriers to climate action. The survey results will provide a list of climate actions and barriers identified by current climate activists in the field in hopes to inform the movement on what is working and what is important to focus on in the future to move people to action. This field manual will hopefully provide additional insights to help build the climate justice movement.
Start Date
6-5-2017 3:30 PM
End Date
6-5-2017 3:45 PM
Genre/Form
presentations (communicative events)
Subjects - Topical (LCSH)
Climatic changes; Environmental justice
Subjects - Names (LCNAF)
Conference of the Parties (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) (21st : 2015 : Paris, France)
Type
Event
Format
application/pdf
Language
English
Building the Climate Justice Movement - A Field Manual to Increase Climate Activism
Miller Hall
Building the Climate Justice Movement
Jill MacIntyre Witt Masters Candidate, Department of Environmental Studies
Grace Wang, Ph.D., Department of Environmental Studies
Huxley College of the Environment, Western Washington University
Governments from around the world have been meeting annually for over twenty years to determine solutions for addressing global climate change. At the COP 21 Climate Summit in Paris, 196 governments agreed that carbon emissions must be lowered and each country reported their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) for lowering carbon emissions. Now it is up to civil society to hold governments not only accountable to their commitment, but to also urge bolder action since their contributions are not adequate to lower emissions to a level suitable for a livable future. While citizens around the world are becoming more aware of the climate crisis, a global justice movement can play a critical role to move more people to climate action in order to pressure governments to act. This research project focuses on how to increase climate activism through a compilation of strategies and best practices in the form of a field manual to help inform individuals and organizations on ways to move people to climate activism. A Climate Activist Survey was distributed to climate activists that attended the Paris COP 21 Climate Summit in order to gain a better understanding of what activists are currently doing to increase climate activism, what they plan to do in the future to help make more of a difference, and what they feel are barriers to climate action. The survey results will provide a list of climate actions and barriers identified by current climate activists in the field in hopes to inform the movement on what is working and what is important to focus on in the future to move people to action. This field manual will hopefully provide additional insights to help build the climate justice movement.