Charting Vermont's Future.

• Author: Kwoka, Bethany

FOR 17-YEAR-OLD VERMONTER IRIS HSIANG, CLIMATE CHANGE HAS ALWAYS BEEN A PART OF HER LIFE. "I don't know if I can pinpoint a moment when I got involved in climate activism," she says. The Essex Junction teen and her younger sister attended climate marches with their parents and have classmates and neighbors who immigrated as climate refugees. And last year, she joined Vermont Public Interest Research Group as a junior organizer.

She sees a clear connection between the changes in her local environment--a home that floods with increasing frequency, certain roads that always get washed out during storms, a pattern of eroding riverbanks--and the climate crisis.

Recently, Hsiang's activism took a new turn when she became the youth representative on Vermont's Climate Council--the group tasked with creating a plan to implement the recently passed Global Warming Solutions Act. The new law--a priority for CLF last year--calls for Vermont's climate-damaging emissions to drop to zero by 2050. The council has until the end of 2021 to develop and collect feedback on its Climate Action Plan to reach that 2050 goal, as well as interim emissions targets set for 2025 and 2030.

The council process builds on the work of other New England states that have also passed ambitious climate laws, including Massachusetts and Maine (and, most recently, Rhode Island see highlights on the next page). And, as in those states, a critical concern for council members is how to reach Vermont's ambitious emissions goal without leaving anyone behind.

"We need to make sure the Climate Action Plan is not just perpetuating the harms that are being done to people of color and other marginalized communities," says Hsiang. Low-income and of-color communities are disproportionately affected by environmental burdens and climate impacts. They're more likely to live near a power plant that spews pollution into their air, a major highway that belches exhaust fumes and noise, or a landfill that leaks dangerous substances into their soil and groundwater. And they have fewer resources to bounce back after disasters such as heat waves and severe storms.

"Centering racial justice in climate advocacy is really important and often gets overlooked," continues Hsiang. She might be the youth representative on the Climate Council, but her focus is broader than an age demographic. "I think that another important force I bring is just a young Vermonter of color."

Her goal for her work on the Climate...