Workshop “Hampton Roads Climate Change and Environmental Justice Challenges Part 1”

In-Person Workshop April 22, 2024, 08:30 - 16:00 IRP 2, 4211 Monarch Way, Norfolk, VA, USA

Scope

EPA has issued a call for proposals under the “Inflation Reduction Act Community Change Grants Program” managed by EPA (see the Announcement and download the Notice of Funding Opportunity, NOFO). Hampton Roads faces a range of complex challenges due to climate change and sea level rise, which are impacting the people in our society in rather different ways. The impacts are increasing inequality and impacting environmental justice. This workshop aims to identify challenges in our area related to climate change and environmental justice that could be addressed with specific projects.

The first part of the workshop provided an opportunity to check our reality and to develop ideas of how we can tackle major climate change and environmental justice challenges in an economically feasible and socially just way.

Goals

As an outcome of this first part of the workshop we wanted to identify one or more particular problems that could be addressed in projects potentially funded through the Community Change Grant Program. The second part of the workshop will then focus on developing the partnership for one or more proposals and to start drafting these proposals.

Participation

Participation in this event was by invitation only. If you had not been invited but would like to participate in the process, please do send a message to the VCC Administration. You can send this message in the Administration Room accessible in the Reception.

The goal was to bring together representatives of local governments, non-governmental organizations engaged in climate change and environmental justice, and institutions of higher educations. A mapping of relevant stakeholders is still open on the Participatory Modeling Floor in Mappings. If you are aware of stakeholders in these groups that are not yet included in this list, please do include them.

Outcomes

The main outcome of this first part is a shared understanding of what environmental and climate justice means for us. This shared understanding comes with a list of challenges, summary descriptions of what the individual challenges are about, and the stakeholders in these challenges. We also aimed to identify the steps that need to be taken for each challenge before the second part of the workshop on May 27, 2024.