Climate Resilience & Justice Convening
Introduction
Arizona is on the frontlines of the climate crisis. With increasing heat waves, wildfires, and extended drought across the region, we are at a breaking point. Indigenous communities and climate activists from the region have long-identified colonial intervention as the historical and ongoing driver of the climate crisis. In order to face the grave challenges that lie before us we must courageously identify the production of climate change as a by-product of colonial extraction, land theft, and human enslavement. The connection between ongoing colonial entanglements and the climate crisis must be addressed before and in tandem with solutions. To ensure different political, environmental, and social outcomes, we must prioritize the perspectives, knowledges, research and practices of Indigenous people from across the globe.
Environmental inequalities resulting from racist zoning, water, housing, air quality, and urban planning policies are not new. As climate change reveals the historical and present-day failures of local, state, and federal governments to adequately support the resilience and safety of Indigenous, Black, Latinx, low-come, and people of color, it is clear that climate initiatives going forward must prioritize equity and justice if we are to create a better future for communities. In 2023, LISC Phoenix joined the Resilient Southwest Building Code Collaborative (RECI) project in a collective effort to transform building construction practices across the southwest to achieve highly efficient and climate-resilient buildings and communities while preserving affordability, regional characteristics, and advancing racial equity. As a leader in community development and community engagement practices, LISC Phoenix works with communities impacted by climate change through business development, climate resilience infrastructure, and educational programs. LISC Phoenix is committed to fulfilling its mission of “building resilient and inclusive communities” by directly supporting the leadership of Indigenous, Black, low-income communities, and people of the global majority to find self-directed solutions to face the climate crisis. The Climate Resilience and Climate Justice Convening is the first in a series of gatherings that support Indigenous and Black leaders on the frontlines of climate change. This report outlines the generative contributions and findings of the first Climate Resilience and Climate Justice Convening hosted by LISC Phoenix on June 11, 2024.
