Climate Solutions to Build Health Equity and Community Ownership

The path to climate and health solutions must balance thoughtful consideration of justice and equity issues and rapid implementation of essential mitigation and adaptation strategies. During a session on air quality at the National Environmental Health Association’s Annual Educational Conference in early August, impressing this to health professionals was a key goal. Panel speakers from Kansas City’s RiSE4EJ and SciCAN, the Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts, and Climate for Health, presented the impacts of climate change on air quality and health while emphasizing that many of the solutions across technology, research, communications, and advocacy already exist. To protect our environment and our health, we simply need to commit to putting them into action.

Three panelists sitting at a table with a microphone in front of them. From the left: Katherine Catalano (a woman with blonde hair and glasses), Beto Lugo Martinez (a man with short, dark hair, wearing a dark blue shirt), and Amanda Li (a woman with long, dark hair wearing a blue and white striped shirt).

But there is a nuance to this need for quickly deployed climate solutions. It’s that our transition to clean energy and promoting clean air cannot come about through repeating past injustices. Marginalized populations have long shouldered the brunt of the health and financial costs of climate change and the burning of fossil fuels. In the rapid growth of renewable energy and its related technology, such as battery storage, it’s essential to center these communities in the build out. A recent blog, written by RiSE4EJ’s Beto Lugo Martinez and Just Solutions’ Elena Krieger, details what this could look like.

“With U.S. battery storage capacity poised to nearly quadruple in the next five years, a key question emerges: how can these projects be developed in partnership with the surrounding community to minimize risks and realize the full equity, public health, climate, and economic benefits of energy storage? In Kansas City, Kansas, the community-based organization RiSE4EJ is laying the groundwork to do just that.”

A group of about 20 people is standing in the grass in a park listening to a man (Beto Lugo Martinez) speak. — Photo by: RiSE4EJ

Read the full blog and take the Climate Ambassador Training to learn more about how you can engage on local climate justice and health equity initiatives.

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About the Authors

Amanda Li, MPH, is Senior Manager of ecoAmerica’s Climate for Health program.

Beto Lugo Martinez is an environmental justice organizer and leads community led research and policy development at RISE for Environmental Justice.

Additional Resources

Report: Organizations and Climate Action

Join ClimateRx

Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Children and Youth Report 2023

Climate for Health Ambassador Training

Climate for Health Resources