<aside> 💡 This is the foundational/guiding language for CCN. For more detail, check out the CCN strategy page
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We are organizing and empowering a student movement to win a world where universities, free from the influence of the fossil fuel industry, are true climate leaders that invest in environmental justice.
When we win, universities will be forced to become more just and democratic institutions with better conditions for students, faculty and staff, build meaningful relationships with locally impacted communities, and harness their power to transform local and federal economies with real, people-focused climate solutions.
The Campus Climate Network is revitalizing the student climate movement. We are building a coalition of student-led climate justice groups fighting to cut ties with the fossil fuel industry and its enablers. We provide students with the training, resources, and connections they need to run winning campaigns on campus and become the next generation of climate justice leaders.
If we build a large, coordinated coalition of skilled student climate organizers and campus community members running effective campaigns, we will hold the power to successfully influence decision-making at universities and publicly pressure them to cut ties with the fossil fuel industry.
We will win because when we unite, we pose a credible threat to universities’ prestige, credibility, and influence, without which they can’t survive.
Universities have always been on the forefront of social change. When universities cut ties with the fossil fuel industry, other social institutions will follow.
Along the way, we will equip a new generation of leaders to continue the fight for climate justice long after they have left campus.
Revoking the fossil fuel industry’s social license to operate and developing new climate justice leaders will bring us closer to achieving a just energy transition to stop the climate crisis.
Every new member is a future leader.
Every new project is an opportunity to develop a new leader, even if it sometimes seems easier to “do it ourselves.” We know that the youth climate movement has often skewed towards upper-class and white leaders, and are committed to developing and uplifting working class, low-income, and BIPOC leaders.
We lean into tension.
We lean into tensions rather than letting them grow stronger under the surface. We call each other in through 1:1s and conflict resolution. We believe that addressing conflict head-on leads to a stronger, more resilient movement.