Changing Climate: The Role of Environmental Justice with Rhiana Gunn-Wright

Join us to discuss meaningful climate policy and environmental justice reform. In this conversation, Rhiana Gunn-Wright, Director of Climate Policy at the Roosevelt Institute and an architect of the Green New Deal, will speak to:

• Why climate policy must include environmental justice
• Why climate must be part of our post-COVID economic recovery
• Opportunities for the Biden administration to tackle climate change and environmental justice

Moderated by Sikina Jinnah, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at UC at Santa Cruz.

Welcome and opening remarks by Valentin Lopez, Chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band.

Event sponsored by the Institute for Social Transformation.

Rhiana Gunn-Wright is the Director of Climate Policy at the Roosevelt Institute. Before joining Roosevelt, Gunn-Wright was the policy director for New Consensus, charged with developing and promoting the Green New Deal, among other projects. Previously she served as the policy director for Abdul El-Sayed’s 2018 Michigan gubernatorial campaign. A 2013 Rhodes Scholar, Gunn-Wright has also worked as the policy analyst for the Detroit Health Department, was a Mariam K. Chamberlain Fellow of Women and Public Policy at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, and served on the policy team for former First Lady Michelle Obama. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale in 2011 with majors in African American studies and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies.

Recent Publications: 

A Green Recovery: The Case for Climate-Forward Stimulus Policies in America’s COVID-19 Recession Response

Bloomberg Quicktake Video:

Rhiana Gunn-Wright Is Fighting the Policies Making People Sick