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In September 2024, NCRP’s Senior Movement Engagement Manager for Climate Change Senowa Mize-Fox and NCRP’s Research and Development Associate Spencer Ozer attended New York City Climate Week. Climate Week is a series of events sponsored by The Climate Group that aims to bring together actors from all different sectors with a shared vision of tackling the complicated and multifaceted issues of the climate crisis. In this special 2-Part blog post, you will hear from Ozer and Mize-Fox as they recount their key takeaways from their time at Climate Week 2024. This is part 2 of 2.

senowa mize-fox headshot

This year was my third and Spencer’s first Climate Week, and it was the largest in terms of attendance by a wide margin compared to the last two years I attended. Our primary focus of the week was to promote the first part of a three-part research project NCRP is working on with the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) and the Tishman School for Environment and Design called the Just Returns Project. The first iteration of this body of work focuses on the investments of the top 50 climate funders according to the Donors of Color Network Climate Justice Funding Pledge and how they line up with those funders’ statements on justice and equity. You can read the first part of the report here.

In addition to promoting this work, Spencer and I attended several movement and/or funder centered events related to our climate justice work at NCRP.

I spend a lot of time in my work organizing philanthropy and bringing attention to what the climate justice movement calls false solutions: “solutions” to the climate crisis that are often technocratic and grounded in our market driven capitalist economic system. False solutions are usually created and implemented by those who platform themselves as experts when it comes to mitigating and/or adapting to the climate crisis. They are well funded at a disproportionate rate to strategies and tactics that are developed and practiced by those on the frontlines of this crisis. Those who are most impacted.

Anecdotally, here is a sentiment amongst frontline led organizations that Climate Week is a waste of time and not representative of their organizing work. Conversely, Climate Week is also more accessible for those in the US than major global climate summits like the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: Conference of Parties (UNFCC COP), which also happens in the fall. Last year, COP was hosted in Baku, Azerbaijan, an oil rich country in Central Asia with deep ties to the petroleum industry. Given that and various other human rights concerns, the focus shifted to treat NYC Climate Week as a “mini-COP.”

Something that is clear each time I have attended Climate Week is the seemingly opposing objectives in the events that are led by climate justice movement groups versus those led by funders, corporations, think tanks and academia and Big Greens: large legacy environmental organizations who historically receive a much larger share of funding compared to grassroots organizations. Most of the official Climate Week events are corporate sponsored and promote one size fits all “solutions” funded by venture capital and/or institutional philanthropy. There is a lot of greenwashing and lip service – almost an ode to the frontlines in a way, but without giving any credit where credit is due. Meanwhile, the movement led and centered events focus on deepening commitment to supporting those most impacted by the climate crisis, which will in turn support us all.

What stood out to me in the frontline led and informed spaces was not who was in the room (movement leaders, aligned funders, some curious academics), but who was not in the room, even when invited. It is important to have spaces to strategize and build power amongst aligned groups and individuals for the purpose of advancing a shared vision. However, this work does not happen in a vacuum and requires funding, allies and co-conspirators, those who stand ready to advance the work in solidarity with those on the ground.

Some events that were funder-led but movement informed and did a great job at bringing together frontline movement organizers (mostly grantees) and funders; such as the HIVE Fund’s 5-year anniversary celebration. This event that Spencer and I both attended stood out because of how they centered their frontline grantees by opening up space for them to talk about their work and the impacts that continuous resourcing can have. It is infuriating how rare this approach seemed throughout the week. Many of the funder-led spaces that I learned about through philanthropic colleagues were panels and/or conversations between mainstream climate funders and big greens with little to no frontline representation to be seen.

As we look toward NYC Climate Week 2025, I cannot help but think of the ways in which the urgency has shifted. By the time this piece is published, we will have ushered in a new presidential administration that has historically doubled down on climate crisis denialism and misinformation. There is anticipation of broad attacks on civil society organizations, and those that fund them. We are seeing major billionaire climate donors such as Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, walk back user protections on their websites that will affect millions, hold meetings with the incoming president and donate millions of dollars to the inauguration all for the purpose of protecting their bottom line. Furthermore, as we watch in horror at the destruction and increasing militarization that the Greater Los Angeles wildfires are bringing to thousands of people who are working nonstop to support each other through this crisis, we have climate tech billionaire Elon Musk severely downplaying the role that the climate crisis is responsible for the fires.

Moving more resources to the frontlines, while stopping the advancement of false solutions at events like NYC Climate Week is not just about ensuring that there is equity in the work. It is not about throwing pennies at movement groups to make your DEI requirements and to be able to put Black and brown faces on your homepage. It is about actively rejecting the influence and narrative that billionaires and multi-millionaires (and their corporations and foundations) have in the climate space. Whether you are an institutional funder or non-movement centered funder intermediary, you need to show up with the same enthusiasm and resources for movement groups as you do for the technocrats and big greens.

When you let high net worth wealth holders call the shots, you are not just “being responsive to the field,” you are sending a very clear message to impacted communities that their tested and proven solutions do not matter. You are contributing to further marginalizing them, while partnering with and listening to actors who are actively pushing for their erasure – and for that matter, the denouncement of the climate crisis as a whole. You have the power to help shift the narrative and ensure that the climate justice movement is deeply resourced for the fights ahead, use it.

 


Prior to working with NCRP as the Movement Engagement Manager for Climate Justice, she spent four and a half years with the Climate Justice Alliance – a national grassroots alliance made up of frontline member organizations working towards a Just Transition – doing operations and membership engagement work. 

In previous years, she worked closely with Black Lives Matter Vermont, The Vermont Workers’ Center (VWC), and her former labor union, United Electrical Workers. 

She has a degree in Natural Resources Planning from the University of Vermont, and a Masters’ Degree in International Sustainable Development from the University of Manchester in the UK. 

During her free time, Senowa is involved in her neighborhood mutual aid group, and loves to hike, swim, and peruse the internet for anything with rainbows on it. Senowa resides in Baltimore, MD with 3 cats and an ample amount of house plants. 

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