Columbia Climate School professor Sheila Foster is a pioneer in environmental and climate justice. A nationally recognized legal scholar, Foster works at the intersection of law, policy and community action, partnering with local governments, public officials and grassroots organizations to build more just and sustainable cities.
In 2023, her book “Co-Cities: Innovative Transitions Toward Just and Self-Sustaining Communities” received the Association of American Publishers’ PROSE Award in Architecture and Urban Planning. She was also elected as a fellow to the American College of Environmental Lawyers in 2024. Starting this fall, Foster’s climate justice course will become a core requirement for students in both the M.A. in Climate and Society and the M.S. in Climate programs.
State of the Planet spoke with Foster about how law became her tool for justice, what the environmental justice movement is currently up against, and why she still finds hope in local action. Foster will also be speaking on a panel, Climate and Environmental Justice: A Discussion of NYC’s Plans and Outcomes, this coming Wednesday, as part the Climate School’s programming for Harlem Week.
How do you define environmental justice?
Everyone deserves to be equally protected by our environmental regulations and laws, and no community should be overburdened by pollution. Studies have shown that even when income is held constant, polluting facilities and pollutants more generally are more often concentrated in racial and ethnic minority neighborhoods.
Environmental justice (EJ) is also a social movement, whose motto is “we speak for ourselves.” The idea is that people are experts on their own communities and should have a role in decision-making, including in the creation and implementation of the rules and policies that impact them.
Why did you choose law as the best way for you to pursue environmental justice?
When I went to law school, the EJ policy field had not been created yet. But once I began to study it, I saw that the law could help in several ways. First, enforcement—we already have protective statutes, like the Clean Air Act, but they’re under-enforced in these communities. Second, these communities often make claims of unequal treatment, and we have a body of civil rights law that supports those claims. And third, most of these communities are governed by local governments. Local zoning and planning processes shape how sustainable communities can be, and that’s important.
While you have worked at all levels of government, you’ve recently said the state and local level is the best place to leverage power. Why?
I started in the local space, despite the civil rights paradigm from the 1960s that embraces the hope that the federal government will swoop in when local and state governments aren’t responsive. Historically, discrimination by local and state governments prompted the federal government to intervene, as seen in school desegregation efforts in southern states. It made sense to look to the federal level when those states instituted Black Codes and Jim Crow laws that put in place legalized racial segregation and inequality.
But when the federal government isn’t playing a protective role and the politics of states and local governments are more progressive or proactive, those are the levers you pull. When Biden was in office, the push for justice included the federal government, but with the current administration pulling back federal EJ commitments, we pivot again to the states, where work is always happening. In fact, Biden’s lauded Justice40 initiative was borrowed from New York state legislation implemented during the last Trump administration and pushed for by frontline communities around the state. It’s never an either/or situation; it just depends on the current political moment.
What was the conversation in the EJ community like at the end of President Trump’s first term, versus now, going into his second term after four years of President Biden?
Frankly, there wasn’t nearly enough EJ work happening over the eight years of Obama, but when Trump proposed significant cuts to EPA’s budget (which Congress eventually rejected), there was a pivot on climate action to states and cities, including working across national boundaries. At the beginning of the first Trump term, I was deep into this work, helping to start the Global Parliament of Mayors, collaborating with C40 and serving on the New York City Panel on Climate Change, leading its equity work.
When Biden came into office, no one foresaw what he was about to do on racial equity or environmental justice. One of his first executive orders was on racial equity. The Inflation Reduction and Infrastructure Acts included line items for congressionally appropriated programs and funding for disadvantaged communities, like the Environmental Justice and Communities Grant, and to under-resourced community-based nonprofits like WEACT in Harlem. These federal grants and other resources flowing through federal agencies under Biden promised to leave every EJ community better off had they remained in place. However, on Trump’s first day back in office, he rescinded many of Biden’s executive orders, including those that established the Justice40 Initiative and the White House Office of Environmental Justice, as well as clawed back many of the unspent funds allocated under Biden for environmental and climate justice.
Are legal experts concerned about the possibility of an authoritarian rejection of the law? Are there safeguards to prevent that?
Very, very concerned. And as for safeguards? None. Think about it: if you sue to stop the administration from doing something you believe is against current law, you can get a court order, but who enforces it? The Department of Justice, but not if there are only loyalists there. The FBI can send marshals, but only if they are more loyal to enforcing the law (as courts deem it) than to the president. Who do you turn to? The current administration is testing these limits. But I’m quite hopeful that we’re starting to see some changes with people showing up in their communities, and speaking out, because the most powerful pushback is people power.
What makes you hopeful?
The last time Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement, cities and states stepped up. This time, post-Biden, some in the private sector have already bought into the progress we’ve been making, for example, on clean energy and renewables. I’ve been told by many corporate lawyers and private sector professionals that the train has left the station—the energy transition is underway. Fossil fuels are in decline, and the triple return on private investment that the IRA brought into the economy is not going away completely. States are laboratories of democracy and innovation, and the policies they put into place now will hopefully guide the next administration, as they did under Biden.
Starting next year, you’re going to be teaching climate justice at the Climate School. Why did the school decide to make this a required course, and why now?
Student input. My understanding is that I was brought in primarily because the first graduating class asked why climate justice wasn’t in the curriculum. Last academic year, we completed a strategic plan for the Climate School. One question was: If you come to Columbia Climate School and you want to work in this interdisciplinary area, what foundational knowledge do you need? We decided students need to know climate science—mitigation and adaptation—as well as data analytics, and social systems and justice. From there, you can figure out what you’re really interested in, which can change over the course of a career, as mine has. Not everyone will love every course, but this is a bold and necessary move by the Climate School.
Why do you see it as a bold move?
Because many people don’t understand what climate justice is, and I have to explain that it’s a body of social science now, in addition to being a policy framework. It’s not just about impact, but about the social systems that leave people vulnerable. It’s about using quantitative and qualitative metrics and understanding the historical legacies of past decisions and their relationship to climate vulnerability. This course demonstrates that climate justice cuts across the sciences, social and natural, as well as policy and practice.
One of the things climate students should understand is that while the site of work may shift, the work itself continues. We’re waiting, and when the federal government changes again, we will be ready. These are just moments in time—this too shall pass. But the work doesn’t stop.
