Utility Justice: The Next Frontier in Environmental Justice Campaigns
Session Type(s): Panel, Streamed Session
Starts: Saturday, Jul. 15 3:45 PM (Central)
Ends: Saturday, Jul. 15 4:45 PM (Central)
Room: Salon A-1
Groups around the country are taking on investor-owned electric utilities, which are responsible for 25% of America’s climate emissions yet shut off power for millions of Americans each year. Through state-level work and campaigns pressuring corporations, they are winning justice from these giant corporations. Join us to hear from the campaign manager for a ballot initiative in Maine to create a consumer-owned utility, a renewable energy worker pushing utilities to raise standards in her industry and a national alliance of groups fighting for energy democracy in the utility sector.
Moderator
Jean Su
Jean Su is the Energy Justice Program Director and Senior Attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. Jean oversees and develops the Energy Justice program’s campaigns, dedicated to hastening the clean, democratic energy future so urgently needed to protect wildlife, communities and the climate. Jean also works to challenge wall construction in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and serves on the boards of Climate Action Network International and SustainUS. Before joining the Center, she worked as a renewable energy project finance attorney and in the climate change and international development fields in Africa and Asia. She’s an inaugural class member of the UC Irvine School of Law and holds a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University.
Panelists
Felicia Allen
Felicia Allen is from the small southern Ohio town of Portsmouth. She has worked in the utility-scale solar industry since 2020, building large solar installations across Ohio. She is a leader in the Green Workers Alliance (GWA) and was part of the first class of GWA fellows, who work part-time to build the organization while they continue their work in the renewable industry.
Al Cleveland
Al Cleveland (they/them) is based on the unceded, occupied land of the Abenaki people in the city commonly known as Portland, Maine. They are the Campaign Manager of Pine Tree Power; a Maine ballot initiative campaign to build a statewide consumer-owned utility. For the last decade, they have organized with young people to win transformative campaigns. From closing youth prisons, to bringing clean election funding to municipal elections, to now leading the effort toward public power for Maine, Al is committed to building just thriving communities.
Dieynabou Diallo
Dieynabou Diallo leads the Climate Justice strategy of our network and works with affiliates to drive community-based climate justice solutions. She takes a collaborative and relationship-centered approach to advance strategies and campaigns that build toward a just and equitable clean energy economy that sustains workers, communities, and the planet, and achieves racial, gender, and economic justice.
Dieynabou is the daughter of Guinean immigrants who raised her with strong community values. Growing up in a strong immigrant community in the Bronx, she developed a sense of duty to community irrespective of borders and the fire to fight hard for a just and caring world.
Prior to joining PowerSwitch Action, Dieynabou supported environmental justice communities in North Carolina who were overburdened by unregulated Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations by conducting scientific analyses and policy research. Dieynabou also has an international development background in energy access and international education with a specific focus in West Africa. In her work, she has built community coalitions in India, worked with teachers from over 30 countries, and worked frequently with communities across West Africa. She also worked in New York City public schools as an educator.
At PowerSwitch Action, Dieynabou has led the strategy development of the Climate Justice program, advised on and authored climate justice reports, and worked with coalition partners to advocate for community-centered climate justice solutions.
Dieynabou Diallo holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Management and Certificate in International Development Policy from Duke University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Geography and Sociology from Dartmouth College. Dieynabou lives in the Bronx, NY, her hometown, and enjoys spending time outdoors, meeting people from different walks of life, and watching cooking videos/shows.