This commentary is by two 350VT volunteer leaders: Divya Gudur, who is a recent Middlebury College graduate and a climate justice youth organizer, and Jesse Scarlato, a Montpelier resident. Both are members of the 350VT Just Transition Campaign team and serve on 350VT’s board.
Right now the Vermont Climate Council is drafting a climate action plan that will determine the future of climate policy in Vermont. It is holding public engagement sessions now through Oct. 6 for Vermonters to weigh in on this plan.
We’re at a crossroads. This plan can become an incremental corporate-friendly plan, or it can support a transformative vision — the kind of vision where we not only take bold action to address climate change, but where we also embrace policies that make people’s daily lives better.
As policies like Rhode Island’s 2021 Act on Climate Bill push the envelope on what is politically possible, we are left to ask ourselves: Why not Vermont?
We need solutions for the end of the world and the end of the month. And we need people all across Vermont to make sure that the climate council and people at all levels of government are prioritizing a just transition that leaves no one behind.
A just transition means that, in addressing climate change, we are not just reducing emissions, but that we are changing the very systems that perpetuated this crisis in the first place and doing reparative work to support those who have been harmed. And we need you to help make it happen. You and your friends, and your family, because we are stronger together.
We need a strong movement to hold our political leaders accountable for taking bold action on climate — a movement is just a whole lot of everyday people, connected through strong and resilient relationships, working over the long term to build a better world.
We believe that a bold vision for the future can empower and mobilize people in a way that incrementalism cannot, and in a way that fear and overwhelm cannot. As we organize to uplift the voices of people all over Vermont, our hope is that we not only succeed in creating more just, equitable and transformative policy in the near term, but that we also change how people think about climate change.
We work to create a recognition of how the solutions to the climate crisis can make people’s lives better, and how those solutions exist in all areas of our lives — from agriculture to housing, transportation, and care work.
Policies that address emissions, but continue to support an economy that is exploitive and extractive, are not a solution. This is a moment of crisis, but it is also a moment of opportunity. That’s why we’re calling on the Vermont Climate Council, legislators, Gov. Phil Scott and state agencies to do everything in their power to bring about a just transition off of fossil fuels to a just and climate-resilient Vermont. And in the short term, the climate council must ensure the accurate counting of our greenhouse gases and development of a mass weatherization program, among other steps.
A just transition is an opportunity for unbounded creativity, and each of us has the opportunity to change what we as a state imagine is possible. There’s incredible beauty and power in what we can accomplish together.
South of us, Rhode Island’s environmental justice bill is actively changing how people are living their lives. These new realities were once only visions of what could be, what-if possibilities that were given life because communities around the state demanded to live out the futures they wanted. We are the ones who can save ourselves. And together, we can also create the futures that we want to live. Find out more ways to get involved at 350vermont.org.
