Public Resource
On the Frontlines of the Climate Emergency: Where Immigrants Meet Climate Change
Nancy Youman. Unbound

Philanthropic investment at the nexus of the climate and immigrant justice movements would help build a healthy and collaborative ecosystem across movements. Moreover, it is both a moral and strategic priority. This kind of philanthropic investment can enable forward planning of safe pathways for people who lose their homes; protections and opportunities for workers and communities who are striving to build resilience; and the power to win and implement urgent, equitable, and effective responses to climate challenges. This report urges philanthropists to pursue three strategies. First, build capacity of local organizations by providing tools, resources, staffing, and a structure for the development of a shared analysis and strategy. Second, give voice to immigrant communities in the national climate justice conversation and in coalitions like the Green New Deal Network and the U.S. Climate Action Network to ensure that federal policy and programs include immigrants. Third, develop climate justice narratives that normalize migration as a natural response to dangerous climate conditions and that uplift immigrant communities, showing them as protagonists in the fight for climate justice and resilient communities.