Climate Justice Alliance

Founded in 2013, CJA is rooted in the environmental justice movement in that it centers efforts around protesting and organizing against the disproportionate harm of climate change on marginalized communities.

[1] The stated goal of CJA to create "[apply] the power of deep grassroots organizing to win local, regional, statewide, and national shifts" in regards to climate change and unjust exposure of marginalized communities to its damaging effects.

Most notably, early members of CJA organized a 400-person assembly for climate justice at the 2010 US Social Forum in Detroit.

However, upon the proposal of the Green New Deal, delegates from CJA spoke out publicly about the need for a focus on protecting “frontline communities” (those who are most exposed to the damaging effects of climate change) via public statements and organizing members in Washington D.C. to address United States Congress directly.“The Climate Justice Alliance welcomes the bold Green New Deal initiative from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other Members of Congress; however, to truly address the interlinked crises of a faltering democracy, growing wealth disparity and community devastation caused by climate change and industrial pollution, we must reduce emissions at their source.

Such loopholes for carbon markets and unproven techno-fixes only serve to line the coffers of the polluting corporations, while increasing (not reducing) harm to our communities.

Rally for the climate crisis, Saturday 22 February 2020, Melbourne, organized by the Climate Justice Alliance.
Diagram describing the flow of natural resources through the economy: Valuable resources are procured from nature by the input end of the economy; the resources flow through the economy, being transformed and manufactured into goods along the way; and invaluable waste and pollution eventually accumulate by the output end. Recycling of material resources is possible, but only by using up some energy resources as well as an additional amount of other material resources; and energy resources, in turn, cannot be recycled at all, but are dissipated as waste heat .