Vilas Annavarapu is the environmental justice fellow for the Great Plains Institute. This fellowship focused on policy, awareness, and action runs for fifteen months. During the first three months, the fellow is a part of a policy immersion program, and afterwards, the fellow proposes and executes an action project. As a member of the Carbon Action Alliance (CAA), Vilas helped develop the CAA Civic Toolkit, a resource hub for developers, state actors, and communities to explore equitable deployment of carbon management technologies. This post outlines Vilas’ experience with the Mississippi People’s Movement and highlights major takeaways for what it means to work with communities on the ground.
Mississippi is no stranger to crisis. Sometimes, crisis is large and all-encompassing. It dominates news cycles. Friends from out of state call me to check whether water drips out of my pipes in Jackson. At other times, it’s quieter—ongoing. This type of crisis demands less oxygen but is still nefarious and corrosive. Think potholes adorning thoroughfares, rural poverty, or the literacy rates of some of my former middle school students. I’m quick to remind my friends that a place like Mississippi is vast in its diversity, culture, and grit—in no way should we be defined by our hardships. In fact, it is the unwavering resolve of so many Mississippians to fight for a kinder future that leaves me in awe of my adopted home.
When I joined the Great Plains Institute’s Carbon Action Alliance team as the inaugural environmental justice fellow, I knew immediately that I wanted to work closely with community organizations across the state. I found the Mississippi People’s Movement (MPM)—a statewide hub of churches, nonprofits, and local leaders working tirelessly to improve their communities. MPM emerged from the Gulf South for a Green New Deal, a collective of organizers from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida working to imagine and advocate for a just environmental future. In 2024, each state was charged with building internal capacity and charting out state-specific climate plans.
I began my partnership with MPM by asking lots of questions. I interviewed member organizations to understand their immediate priorities and assess their interest in climate action. It quickly became clear that their interest in doing good work on behalf of the environment was high (and many were already doing it), but there was a desire to develop climate expertise and map out strategies to achieve climate wins. Similarly, there was a clear investment in the well-being of communities. Hub members shared the importance of locally sourced and healthy produce, clean air, clean water, labor rights, and immigrant rights. We decided to host an in-person gathering of MPM members for a “Climate Learning Convening”: a dedicated space to learn about climate change from experts, facilitate discussions to develop a statewide just transition plan, and ask tough questions.
Watch this video to be immersed in our weekend learning experience:
I came away with two sets of takeaways. The first set answers the following question: what information do communities need to understand their role in responding to climate change?
Climate education doesn’t happen overnight. It’s essential people understand the big picture and contextualize the need for local projects.
The need for climate education first inspired the Climate Learning Convening in Jackson. MPM was already attentive to the harms of climate change but wanted more details. What are some of the driving forces behind climate change? What solutions exist to move our economy away from carbon-intensive to carbon-free? How will those solutions impact people? Leah Stokes, a professor of environmental politics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, shared a big picture presentation on climate which helped MPM members understand the steps needed to electrify each sector of the economy and the places where renewables fall short. We talked about high-heat industries like cement and steel and the deployment of technologies like carbon capture and hydrogen to prevent carbon emissions. Dr. Simone Stewart, an industrial policy expert from the National Wildlife Federation, went into a deeper dive into those technologies. In both cases, MPM members had the chance to ask tough questions about safety, cost, and community impact. The big picture clearly shows the steps we need to take along the way.Long-term visioning work enables short-term planning.
During the conference, I facilitated conversations about the future community members envisioned for Mississippi. I asked what role, if any, they saw for aviation, cement, steel, artificial intelligence, or cars—all high-energy sectors—in our state’s future. I expected two possible answers. The first was that these industries are not necessary. We need to move toward a de-growth economy that focuses on producing less and consuming less. The second possible answer was the one MPM members communicated. All these sectors are essential. We need to fly on planes, drive cars, deploy AI, and use industrial outputs to build homes and businesses. Once we agreed on the need for energy-intensive industries, mapping out the short-term policy measures to reach that goal became possible. The next step of my action project is to develop a Just Transition plan with MPM that outlines a path for a green economy in Mississippi.
The second set of takeaways answers the question: What do communities need relationally to feel comfortable moving forward with climate work?
- Communities have a lot of trauma from past experiences with external partners.
When folks from out of state come to Mississippi with enthusiasm, good intentions, and resources, they might be surprised to find distrust from community partners for whom Mississippi is home. It’s not that people here aren’t excited by the possibility of new projects—too many are burned out by unkept promises. During the Climate Learning Convening, the handling of the Jackson water crisis was a regular example. When authority over Jackson’s water and sewer system was handed to a third-party administrator appointed by the EPA, communication was frequent, updates were transparent, and relevant officials were readily available. That was no longer the case several months after the new authority was established. Now, community members are frustrated by a lack of information and feel their trust has been betrayed. In other instances, organizations have been lied to, worked with unreliable actors, or faced interpersonal harm.
Despite this history, community organizations are still ready and willing to collaborate with external partners. External partners have an obligation to clearly articulate the scope of their work, how they plan on engaging with communities, and establish clear structures of accountability. It’s on said partners to honor their commitments and to consistently demonstrate to community members how they have maintained them. This does not mean that plans can’t change. It does mean that community groups are never caught off guard when they do. - If we’re serious about community input, we need to build community capacity.
Developers and governments, more than ever before, seem to recognize the importance of community engagement. This is a tremendous development. Asking a broad swath of people for their perspective on a project and adjusting based on their input demonstrates a desire to ensure buy-in. While there are more thoughtful conversations around “engagement fatigue,” we need a long-term strategy to build community capacity so that community members and leaders can understand the implications of a project, assess constituent concerns, and substantively participate in its development.
What does this look like? Three pillars stand out: funding, expertise, and organizing. Recent federal legislation has made billions of dollars available for community-level organizations. Still, federal grants involve highly complicated applications, and if a group receives one, the reporting requirements afterward involve even more work. Community-based organizations do essential work but are often anxious about where their next dollar will come from. In addition to organizational stability, community organizations need the resources to develop their own channels of expertise. This could look like sustained partnerships with organizations like the Great Plains Institute or local universities. When dealing with crises ranging from literacy to climate catastrophe, community groups need ready access to trusted, third-party sources of information so that they can develop internal positions and communicate them to constituencies. Professor Stokes and Dr. Stewart represent such experts. This is especially relevant in fields like carbon management, where information is often dense or miscommunicated. The last pillar is building deep organizing networks. Some groups are already quite good at this. Others need time and dedicated people power to cultivate strong community relationships. Organizing is a long and sustained process that does not receive enough resources.
Finally, community organizations are under so much pressure to be reactive. As they focus on putting out daily fires, they lack the capacity to build infrastructure for long-term planning. Community capacity building supports organizations do both. - Building trust is complicated, and it takes more than just time.
I’ve lived in Mississippi for over four years now. I’ve worked as a teacher, barista, community organizer, and after-school tutor. It’s not an insignificant period of time. However, I’m also not from Mississippi. I carry other identities—male, South Asian, young—that impact the way I move through space. One component of building trust is a demonstrated body of experience. Can you communicate to communities that you uphold your word? Are there clear examples that indicate how you’ll deliver on your promises? Another component is ongoing demonstrations of commitment. Do you function as a good partner? Are you accessible and easy to work with? Are you willing to put your agenda on pause to support the needs of others? It’s possible to do all of this and more and still not have the trust of a group of partners. That’s okay, too. Perhaps that indicates it is not the time or place to move a project or initiative forward.
Why does this matter?
This work demonstrates the complexity and necessity of robust partnerships with community. It’s not an easy playbook, but if followed with care, it moves essential climate work forward while improving lives.
Share this video and let us know in the comments: where have you seen meaningful community collaborations? If you’d like to learn more about my work as an environmental justice fellow, sign up for the Carbon Action Alliance newsletter or reach out directly at [email protected].