Niya Manning

To me, climate justice means making sure that everyone has the opportunity to be part of a healthy and resilient future. 

I love this question because my answer has evolved every year. The more experiences I have had, the harder it has become for me to separate environmental challenges from the people living through them. Environmental issues are ones that never seem to stay in their own lane. Often, what starts as a conversation about climate change quickly becomes a conversation about health, education, opportunity, housing, transportation, or community. The science and policy behind climate change are deeply embedded within people's lives and the stories behind them.

As an environmental studies student, I have spent a lot of time learning about sustainability and climate policy in the classroom, but it has been my experiences outside in the field that have fostered some of my most important lessons. I am reminded of the students I worked with in North East Philadelphia through green workforce development programs at the Philadelphia Energy Authority. We might have introduced topics about solar energy or environmental careers, but somehow the dialogue always found its way back to opportunity and what students imagined for their futures. Then I think about my summer in Zambia working with World Vision's Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) team. There, conversations about water rarely ever stayed just about water. They became questions about health, school attendance, agriculture, drought, and community resilience. The most influential learning happened through storytelling, stewardship, and community participation. 

Reflecting on these experiences, everything felt interconnected. Questions about the environment creatively and vibrantly became questions about community, access, and whose voices were the ones being heard. Slowly over the years, I started to see how environmental education sits right in the middle of all of it.

That realization followed me into my work with the Climate Pedagogy Incubator. While researching youth environmental justice organizations across the United States and territories, I kept seeing the same themes emerge: leadership, stewardship, belonging, culture, and community resilience. Again and again, I found unique organizations showcasing the most meaningful environmental learning rooted in people's lived experiences and relationships to place.

That's the version of climate justice I keep coming back to. Listening to communities, learning from them, and recognizing that many of the people facing the greatest environmental challenges are also leading some of the most creative solutions.