NEJAC RECOMMENDATIONS SUMMARY Promoting Climate Justice

The document outlines recommendations for the EPA to integrate climate justice into environmental protections. It emphasizes the need for transparent, holistic decision-making, the acknowledgment of historic biased policies, and the strengthening of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) to better account for cumulative stressors and the specific needs of marginalized communities and non-mainland US territories.

• Climate justice in the US should be guided by principles including the protection of human rights, equitable sharing of benefits and burdens, transparency in participation, a fast and fair phase-out of fossil fuels, and the protection of future generations.
• To prevent disproportionate effects of climate events on disadvantaged communities, the public sector should adopt systemic, interconnected, and transparent approaches, including the use of 'resilience-hubs' to provide community-identified services.
• The NEJAC recommends that regulatory agencies strengthen the implementation of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) by increasing the emphasis on environmental justice, integrating impacts across different environmental media, and giving more weight to the impacts of climate adaptation projects.
• NEPA analyses must move beyond assumptions based on the temperate mainland to account for the diverse geography of the US, specifically including the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and Alaska, and developing tools that represent stressors unique to these territories.
• Regulatory agencies should remove barriers preventing low-income communities from accessing climate benefits like solar power and weatherization, while ensuring that the urgency of the energy transition does not lead to less-stringent permitting for polluting facilities in overburdened areas.

APA

Gehred, N., & Ellickson, K. (2025). NEJAC RECOMMENDATIONS SUMMARY Promoting Climate Justice. Union of Concerned Scientists. https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2025-02/NEJAC%20CI%20reccs_theme%208.pdf

Chicago

Gehred, Natalie, and Kristie Ellickson. NEJAC RECOMMENDATIONS SUMMARY Promoting Climate Justice. Union of Concerned Scientists, 2025. https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2025-02/NEJAC%20CI%20reccs_theme%208.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Gehred |first1=Natalie |last2=Ellickson |first2=Kristie |title=NEJAC RECOMMENDATIONS SUMMARY Promoting Climate Justice |publisher=Union of Concerned Scientists |date=February 2025 |url=https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2025-02/NEJAC%20CI%20reccs_theme%208.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{gehred2025nejac, author = {Gehred, Natalie and Ellickson, Kristie}, title = {{NEJAC RECOMMENDATIONS SUMMARY Promoting Climate Justice}}, institution = {Union of Concerned Scientists}, year = {2025}, month = feb, url = {https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2025-02/NEJAC%20CI%20reccs_theme%208.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }