Taproot Earth is a frontline-rooted climate justice organization with roots in the Gulf South and Appalachia and partners across the Global Black diaspora. In this Q&A, Eliane Lakam, campaign manager of global climate reparations at Taproot Earth, shares how they are building power across borders to advance global climate reparations—from convening more than 200 Black and Indigenous leaders from 22 countries to craft a shared working statement on climate reparations, to bringing frontline voices into international climate negotiations at COP30 in Brazil.

Q: Can you share what the “People’s Movement Assembly Process” is and looks like in practice?

A: The People’s Movement Assembly organizing process centers the voices and experiences of grassroots leadership on the front lines. It has a long tradition in Global South movements and in the radical Black tradition of southern U.S. freedom movements. This process facilitates community self-governance, bringing together frontline leaders to build shared analysis, identify challenges, cultivate and name solutions, and make collective decisions that build the power and systems of democracy needed to advance self-determination and sovereignty.

In August 2024, Taproot Earth convened more than 200 frontline community leaders from 22 countries, representing Black and Indigenous leaders who bear the worth impacts of the climate crisis. Through a democratic decision-making process modeled after a People’s Movement Assembly, these leaders crafted the following working statement:

“[Global] Climate reparations is the restoration of healthy and balanced relationships with all that comprise a shared global ecosystem. Reparative action begins with those who benefit most from the historic and current systems of oppression. It requires the abolition of debt, restitution for injustice and the establishment of accountable systems rooted in Black and Indigenous liberation for all oppressed people and future generations.”

This statement guided Taproot Earth’s engagements at COP30 in Belém Brazil. It shaped our involvement in the People’s Summit, where we co-facilitated two sessions with cross-regional partners, including CIDSE, SINFRAJUPE, CLOC, the World Council of Churches, Development and Peace—Caritas Canada, and KAIROS Canada. Some have worked with us to advance Global Climate Reparations within the Church and have helped carry frontline solutions into global civil society spaces. Their partnership has been essential in continuing the vision of the people’s movement assembly process and strengthening the push for climate reparations in multiple venues.

At the summit, Taproot also supported the implementation of language justice infrastructure. This infrastructure will serve tens of thousands of grassroot movement participants and frontline communities from more than 60 nations. Advancing language justice has been a core commitment of ours. We share lessons learned from Kenya, Rome and other convenings to strengthen partners’ capacity to create accessible spaces. Taproot also co-facilitated a global mapping activity on false vs. real climate solutions. The statement also informed our interventions in press conferences and panel discussions in the Blue Zone and our convenings with faith communities, Brazilian leaders and other global frontline partners.

In these critical spaces, the decisions and statements developed through the Assembly in Kenya were carried forward and opened for deeper engagement and collective action.

Why is it important to foster connections among climate justice leaders in the Gulf South, Appalachia region and Global South? What opportunities come from those connections? 

A: It’s often said that you cannot tie a knot with one hand, and the same is true for climate justice. Fostering connections among leaders from the Gulf South, Appalachia, and the Global South is essential because these regions share intertwined histories shaped by colonial legacies and extractive economies that have fueled the climate crisis.

They also share some of the richest traditions of resistance, care and frontline-led solutions. Even across different geographies, they are fighting the same systems: fossil fuel expansion, mining, land grabs, pollution, climate migration, and the ongoing impacts of colonialism.

When leaders come together across these regions, they are able to learn from one another, develop shared analysis, create more robust, frontline-grounded solutions, deepen solidarity, and heal together.

In 2023, we hosted convenings in Cabo Verde and New York centered on Black Joy, Liberation, and Climate Reparations. These spaces were instrumental in testing assumptions, exchanging knowledge, and grounding our work in lived experience. In 2024, we continued to strengthen these bonds by launching a Global Climate Reparations Fellowship connecting leaders from the Gulf South, Appalachia, and the global Black diaspora. This initiative helped deepen our collective understanding of the climate crisis and allows us to develop stronger solutions together.

We expanded these cross-regional ties at COP30 by hosting two joint strategy sessions on Global Climate Reparations at the People’s Summit, convening lawyers working on climate justice through our Just Transition Lawyering Network, hosting intentional dinners with faith-based, Indigenous, and Afro-Brazilian leaders, and providing resources that enabled more than 20 Black Global South leaders (who otherwise would have been excluded) to attend COP30. These exchanges have been crucial in strengthening the movement, expanding opportunities for solidarity and collective action, and deepening our shared capacity to develop and implement solutions that are both well-informed and grounded in frontline realities.

What are some of the ways that communities are practicing stewardship of reclaimed land, water and energy resources?

A: Communities across the Gulf South, Appalachia and the Global South are practicing stewardship of reclaimed land, water and energy resources in ways that repair historical harm, restore ecological balance and strengthen frontline governance. This includes regenerative land management through various practices, including agroecology. Stewardship also includes safeguarding sacred sites and cultural landscapes, renewing spiritual and cultural practices tied to the land and our relationship with the Earth, and building democratic governance and resource management structures such as land trusts, cooperatives and community-controlled funds.

A tangible example is The Gulf South for a Green New Deal Community Controlled Fund , which presents a transformational model in climate justice investment. In this model, communities most impacted by the climate crisis lead in directing resources and shaping solutions that safeguard their futures.

How should public finance and other funds move to communities?

A: Public finance and other funds must move to communities in ways that repair historic harm, remove barriers to access and support community control and autonomy. This requires placing frontline communities at the center of decision-making and ensuring that climate finance is non-extractive, meaning no debt, no austerity conditions, and no cost-sharing requirements that effectively exclude those most impacted by the climate crisis.

Instead, funding should be guided by principles of Global Climate Reparations, including debt cancellation, the return of stolen resources, and other investments that repair the conditions needed for frontline communities to thrive. We must move away from finance moved through extractive loans toward grant-based and direct pay programs as well.

Climate finance must also shift from being treated as charity to being understood as repair. Taproot Earth recently released the executive summary of Toward a Liberation Economy of Climate Finance, a climate finance report that offers some insights on how funds should move to communities.

How have you convened global community leaders and partners?

A: At Taproot Earth, convening global community leaders and partners is central to our work. Last year, we brought together more than 200 Black and Indigenous frontline leaders from 22 countries for the Global Climate Reparations Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya, where participants drafted a shared working statement on Global Climate Reparations (GCR).

Building on this foundation, we facilitated a Jubilee Convening on Global Climate Reparations in Rome in March this Jubilee year, bringing more than 100 frontline and Catholic leaders together in the spirit of synodality to advance the GCR statement within the Catholic Church and help repair our broken relationship with each other and the Earth.

One of our key convenings this year was Katrina 20 in the Gulf South, which brought movement elders and allies together to reflect on two decades of post-Katrina and chart a people-led path forward. At the heart of this convening was the Monarch Forum, a two-day gathering dedicated to sharing testimony, lessons and visions on climate migration and to advance the rights to remain, migrate and return.

We also hosted a Black Climate Leadership Summit in October this year, which provided a dedicated space for connection, vision and strategy for Black leaders advancing climate justice across regions and sectors. We expanded this global convening work at COP30 in Belém by creating intentional spaces and opportunities for frontline leaders to build relationships, learn from each other and move together. Leaders from our Gulf South to Appalachia (GS2A) Governance Assemblies and our GCR assembly in Kenya remain interwoven in all of our gatherings, and all these spaces are part of our ongoing strategy to continue to strengthen movement infrastructure and build power to advance the climate solutions our communities deserve.