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The Northern Manhattan Climate Action Plan

Abstract: Over the past several years, climate change has begun to exact a disproportionate toll on the poor and working class people of New York City. During Hurricane Sandy, we saw that marginalized communities lost their homes, jobs, financial security and more at a higher rate than others. Yet, to this day, the political and economic dynamics that precipitated the worst of Sandy’s fallout have hardly changed. With an ultimate goal of protecting NYC’s most vulnerable from climate-related impacts, the NMCA promotes environmental policies that also aim to address socioeconomic inequality. The NMCA recognizes that issues of class, race, gender, ethnicity, and age, not simply rising sea levels and temperatures, must be mitigated and ultimately overcome. The NMCA can only address these issues through increases in democratic activity within and outside government. For its vision to be implemented, we must engage with the legislative process, but also build our own systems of economic exchange and urban development independent of the public sector. The NMCA is the result of a six month-long planning process led by WE ACT for Environmental Justice, undertaken in partnership with a multitude of stakeholders. The core ideas in this plan were generated during seven workshops held between January and June of 2015, in which hundreds of New Yorkers participated.