Jenalee Kluttz

Jenalee is a Liu Scholar and Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Educational Studies at The University of British Columbia. She researches environmental and climate justice, social movements, and adult learning in social action. Her current projects explore the individual and collective learning that occurs in solidarity work between social movements for climate justice and movements for Indigenous rights and sovereignty. Her other areas of research include anti-colonial/decolonial learning, climate change and mental health, climate change education, and education for sustainability more broadly.

As UBC’s Climate and Environmental Justice Fellow, she will be working to develop resources and tools to embed equity and justice in responses to the climate emergency. In 2020, The University of British Columbia undertook an extensive community engagement process to create a vision for UBC’s response to the climate emergency. Climate justice was at the center of this vision and emphasis was placed on equity and justice when determining priorities and developing plans for action. Jenalee is working to synthesize the lessons learned from UBC’s Climate Emergency process, and drawing from further research, is developing a set of criteria or guidelines for embedding justice and equity in institutional and organizational response to the climate crisis. The project will also produce more specific resources and tools intended to be useful for a broad range of organizations and institutions as they work to advance their own efforts toward an equitable and just response to the climate emergency.