TOOLKIT

NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program Overview
By creating the Environmental and Climate Justice Program (ECJP), the NAACP has vowed to
right the injustices detailed in this toolkit. The main goal of the program is to educate, mobilize,
and collaborate with impacted communities to ensure all people a healthy environment – where
they live, learn, work, play, and pray.
Throughout the country, NAACP members are fighting against the installation of incinerator
plants that emit toxins into the air we breathe. We are fighting to close down cancer producing,
coal plants and to rid the country of our reliance on fossil fuels. Our communities are continually
the target of disasters both “natural” (recognizing that they are driven by unnatural forces) such
as Hurricanes Rita, Katrina, Isaac, and Sandy and unnatural disasters such as the BP Deep
Water Horizon spill and the Tennessee Valley Authority Coal Ash Spill. All of these inequities
and the disproportionate impact to our health and wellbeing need to be addressed through
transformational action.
We need to educate our friends, families, and communities about the dire results of living near
coal plants and incinerators and we need to create a movement that focuses on creating
sustainable systems including cooperative communities that are characterized by local selfreliance
and resilience as well as creating electricity systems based on energy efficiency and
clean energy so that we are no longer reliant on antiquated and harmful energy sources. The
Environmental and Climate Justice program addresses these concerns by advocating through
three objectives.
Program Objectives:
1) Reduce harmful emissions, particularly greenhouse gases
ECJP combines action on shutting down coal plants at the local level with
advocacy to strengthen development, monitoring, and enforcement of regulations
at the federal, state, and local levels. This also includes a focus on corporate
responsibility and accountability.
2) Advance energy efficiency and clean energy
ECJP works at the state level on campaigns to pass renewable energy and
energy efficiency standards while simultaneously working at the local level with
small businesses, unions, and others on developing demonstration projects to
ensure that communities of color are accessing revenue generation opportunities
in the new energy economy, while providing safer, more sustainable mechanisms
for managing energy needs for our communities and beyond.
3) Improve community resilience
ECJP works to ensure that communities are equipped to engage in climate
action planning that integrates policies and practices on advancing food justice,
advocating for transportation equity and upholding civil and human rights in
emergency management.
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