Analyah, Makayla, and two Youth N’Power Network members Laila and Manny attended Climate Week in New York City this past week. 

Youth N’Power Network’s Analyah Schlaeger dos Santos, who also serves as the co-lead for the national ShiftUS campaign, our global climate justice coordinator, organizer of the national climate reparations camp and much more supported our young folks as they participated in events, panel discussions and workshops all over the city around environmental justice and global shift frameworks. 

The week kicked off with a ShiftUS event titled, “Why Make Billionaires Pay?” Organization leaders and organizers from all over discussed the ShiftUs framework, which is focused on making sure that wealthy nations pay their fair share for the harms caused to nations most impacted by climate change. Accessible global climate reparations funding and a full fossil fuel phase out all need to go together to support our local and global communities and to help our environment. This coincided with the “Make Billionaires Pay March” the following day, which amassed 25k people to march the streets of NYC.

We also got to meet up with the US Climate Reparations Camp participants to share a meal and chat about where we are and what direction we’re moving in thinking about all the realms we work in. We also talked about finding the gaps we need to fill and how to continue all of this amazing local and global environmental work as a collective. 

Analyah also participated in a youth climate forum about envisioning a fossil fuel free world. Many people attended to think through these challenging questions of a fossil fuel free world and how to get there within our organizing spaces. Analyah spoke on a panel there titled Reality check, discussing narrative shifts we need to make progress on global climate reparations.