IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Feminist Climate Responses to the U.S. Election
United States – November 12, 2024 – Today, feminist climate justice groups are issuing statements in response to the results of the 2024 U.S. Presidential election. Please see below responses from different individual and organizational members of the Feminist Green New Deal Coalition. The Feminist Green New Deal Coalition is a coalition of women’s rights, gender justice and climate justice organizations based in the U.S. that work to ensure feminist and global justice principles are embedded in climate policy and action. The Coalition’s membership advances feminist analysis from across the interconnected issue areas of climate, gender, energy, economic justice, demilitarization, and beyond. The reactions below represent feminist perspectives from the Coalition on how we got here, the work that lies ahead, and the role of feminist and climate justice movements in the coming years.
We affirm that feminist movements will continue to struggle, resist and build more just futures together, yesterday, today, and every day. We will challenge the forces of white supremacy, patriarchy, imperialism and extractivism that have powered the rise of fascism globally and in the U.S., threatening our communities and collective well-being. We will hold the line on protecting human rights, bodily autonomy, social protections, and we must push back against the inevitable attempted erosion of these rights. We will commit to take care of each other and protect each other with everything we have.
“The rising threats we all face – to our communities, our bodies, our planet – stand in stark clarity. In recent years, we have watched the U.S. remain the world’s largest oil producer and fail to alter its course as the largest contributor to the climate crisis. We have watched the U.S. government fund violence and genocide. We have watched politicians and the courts erode bodily autonomy rights, civil rights, labor rights, Indigenous Peoples rights, and environmental protection. We have watched the climate crisis unfold in disasters and inequitable impacts around the world, and seen the U.S. continually fail to pay up for the problem it has disproportionately caused. We know that a second Trump presidency is likely to worsen all of these trends, significantly and irreversibly.
As feminists in community, coalition, and deep solidarity with those impacted globally by U.S. policy, we know that the triumph of anti-rights forces represented by/inherent in Trump’s win means we must be ever more creative, strategic, powerful and caring in our resistance. We must hold the line on defending the hard won rights fought for by human rights activists, and we must protect the land, water, reproductive justice and women’s rights defenders on the frontlines of struggle and state violence. We must and will care for each other fiercely. We heed the leadership of feminists past and present who charted the way, fighting for transformation towards a better world.” – Mara Dolan, Program Coordinator, Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO)
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“There’s one lesson we’ve learned from our journey at Women’s Earth Alliance and from the incredible women leaders we work alongside, it’s that resilience is not just a word—it’s an action, a choice, a rallying call. Across continents and through challenges that would make most falter, women are persevering. They are the first responders to climate disasters, the caretakers in times of crises, and the voices for justice where it’s hardest to be heard. Now, more than ever, we need that same resilience in our communities and within ourselves
Here’s the truth: real change has always come from people who refuse to give up, even when the odds seem insurmountable. While today we may feel the sting of setbacks, we also have the clarity of knowing our values. This clarity is our strength. If anything, this moment calls us to double down on our commitment to justice, to the climate, to each other.
Our work—whether through Women’s Earth Alliance or countless other organizations dedicated to a sustainable, equitable future—has always been rooted in community, collaboration, and courage. We are not defined by any one leader or administration. We are defined by our shared vision for the world we want to create, and now is the time to lean on one another, organize with renewed purpose, and to turn fears into focused action.” – Melinda Kramer, Amira Diamond & Kahea Pacheco, Co-Executive Directors, Women’s Earth Alliance
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“The same way they treat the Earth, they treat us. They attack our autonomy, our territory/body, of both Earth and us. They give little importance and priority to our right to have access to services, food and healthy environments in which to raise our children and thrive ourselves. As an afro-descendant, puertorican feminist, and as part of the Global South, I am truly worried about the future that withholds the next four years with Trump and his cabinet. With overt misogynist, racist and transphobic men ruling I could not expect less from national policies that take care of any reproductive or climate justice.
Puerto Rico was recently called a “floating island of garbage” during Trump’s campaign before the elections ended. The aftermath of Hurricane Maria brought our colonial issues into sharper focus, as the crisis underscored the gendered impacts of climate disasters. Women, LGBTQ+, particularly black and from rural areas of Puerto Rico, were disproportionately affected by the storm’s immediate and long-term effects. Trump’s government withheld approximately 20 billion dollars of aid funds towards Puerto Rico, and we only received a president who threw paper towels to a crowd, while people in that same moment were dying. Due to colonial laws that leave us no autonomy, we are at the mercy of federal agencies during every climate disaster. Increasing our vulnerability to climate change and the possibility of a country in which to raise our children.
Additional to our colonial oppression in Puerto Rico, the retreat of the US government in 2017 from the Paris Agreement, and the continuous attack of Trump’s administration on environmental science and climate change, only shows a lack of interest in a national policy that will advance any path towards our decolonization of Puerto Rico or the accountability towards the many communities that face disproportionately the effects of climate disasters. We need a climate policy that takes into account the specific needs of black and brown women, Indigenous women, and LGBTQ+, who bear the main brunt of both climate-related disasters and systemic social inequalities.
Parallel to this dismay, we believe in the indigenous wisdom, grassroot organizing self-determination, including the right to control our resources and our bodies, the ability to develop sustainable and just solutions to environmental challenges and mutual aid response as we have been doing for so long. But this round, strengthening our responses with a feminist lens, giving women and the Earth the importance it deserves as givers and sustainers of life.” – N. Teresa Ramos, Taproot Earth Regional Organizer
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“This is a critical time to renew our national commitment to climate justice. We know that the political context of the United States is extremely dire, and our movements will need to support each other more than ever before. Yet, we can hold on to the truth that our communities, locally and globally, are powerful, strategic, and caring. We will and can continue to fight for liberation and the actualization of a world guided by justice and freedom. We will not give up on this planet or each other, and we are committed to holding the U.S. accountable and to advocating for bold and transformative policies that prioritize climate justice and human rights.” Osprey Orielle Lake, Executive Director of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network, please read WECAN’s full statement here.
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