Climate Justice Group: Climate Justice Alliance

Climate Change Books donates 10% of our proceeds from book sales and website ads to climate justice groups. We’ve decided to give our Winter 2024 donation to Climate Justice Alliance (CJA).

Climate Justice Alliance

Supporting the Climate Justice Alliance is a great way to support many climate justice-related organizations and projects all at once.

Here’s a brief overview of the work of Climate Justice Alliance from their website:

Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) formed in 2013 to create a new center of gravity in the climate movement by uniting frontline communities and organizations into a formidable force. Our translocal organizing strategy and mobilizing capacity is building a Just Transition away from extractive systems of production, consumption and political oppression, and towards resilient, regenerative and equitable economies. We believe that the process of transition must place race, gender and class at the center of the solutions equation in order to make it a truly Just Transition.

I already donated to Climate Justice Alliance back in 2021. They did great work back then and they continue to do great work today.

Why am I donating to them again?

Unfortunately, CJA might lose access to $50 million in grantmaker funding from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) due to their pro-Palestine stance. According to the Intercept, out of 11 organizations receiving environmental justice funding through the IRA, the only group that hasn’t received its funding yet is CJA. This is presumably because the organization has been under attack for its anti-colonialism statements, including its opposition to the Israeli genocide in Palestine and support for the movement to free Palestine.

This funding delay is outrageous on so many levels.

CJA isn’t working directly on anything related to Palestine — and even if they were, that would be a reason to give them more funding, not less. As they and others have explained, ending the genocide and occupation in Palestine is a climate justice issue. There are both climate reasons and justice reasons why all climate justice advocates should speak out against the ongoing Israeli attacks on civilian populations and infrastructures in Gaza and beyond.

There’s also the fact that the $50 million in question won’t even be staying with CJA. As grantmakers, CJA will be giving this money to smaller climate justice groups and projects in the form of grants to support local and regional climate justice work. So the Biden administration’s choice to delay this funding isn’t just hurting the CJA — it’s hurting all of the local communities and regions that would benefit from those grants.

Finally, the Biden administration knows full well that the incoming Trump administration will do everything in its power to reduce or eliminate environmental justice funding and programs. If that money doesn’t start moving before Trump is in office, it may never be spent on anything related to environmental justice or climate justice. This is a very clear-cut example of the saying “Justice delayed is justice denied” in action.

Of course, my tiny donation won’t have much material impact compared to the potential loss of $50 million in funding. However, donating to CJA again seems like a good way to show support for the organization and draw attention to the outrageous withholding of funding that is supposed to be helping communities respond to the climate crisis and other environmental justice concerns.

I encourage everyone to join the EPA staffers and others who are calling for the timely distribution of these funds. In the meantime, please keep CJA and their member organizations in mind as you make your own end-of-year donations. Our own personal donation to CJA may seem small. But with our powers combined, we can support the work of climate justice.