As climate change accelerates, so do its uneven impacts on poor and marginalized communities. Climate justice calls for human rights and principles of racial, inter-generational and economic justice to be applied to the fight for a sustainable world. As lawyers and practitioners how do we put these principles into practice? And how do we build the power of communities disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis and their movements for climate justice? Drawing on our speakers’ expertise in human rights practice and political theory, this event will explore the kinds of methodologies practitioners can adopt to support collective action by those most impacted by climate change.
Lunch will be served. Be sure to RSVP here.
Speakers:
Kelsey Jost-Creegan: Kelsey is a Supervising Staff Attorney, Associate Research Scholar, and Lecturer in Law at the Human Rights Clinic, where she directs the Extractive Industries and Social Movements Project. Previously, she was a staff attorney at EarthRights International, where she worked on civil tort litigation for transnational corporate accountability. Her work and research focuses on the incorporation of participatory and critical methodologies into human rights work, mapping the political ecology and legal geography of extractive enclaves in Latin America and understanding the root causes of violence against land, environmental, and climate defenders and movements.
Rebecca Marwege: Rebecca is the Junior Director of the Decarbonization, Climate Justice and Climate Resilience Earth Network at Columbia Climate School and the lead-editor of the interdisciplinary volume Climate Justice Now! - Multidisciplinary Perspectives on the Climate Crisis. The book calls for more multidisciplinary research on the climate crisis and is currently in production with Columbia University Press. Rebecca's other research focuses on the political influence of environmental movements at a time of climate crisis. In particular, she has studied how youth climate movements redefine the meaning of climate justice and push for political change from the ground up. Additionally, Rebecca teaches the political science seminar Environmental and Climate Justice. Her research and teaching thus center questions of how marginalized voices can be centered in any political and economic transition.
