As Trump Guts Climate Justice Work, Coastal Cities Push Back

This spring, as the federal government was busy canceling $1.7 billion in environmental justice grants, Seattle did the opposite. The city awarded $1.2 million through its Environmental Justice Fund to grassroots organizations confronting climate change on the frontlines — communities facing sea level rise, storm surge, and intensifying heat. The money, raised through a payroll tax on high-income employers, is flowing directly to communities of color, immigrants, the elderly, and low-income residents — people hit first and worst by climate impacts.

It’s not just Seattle. Across the country, cities are stepping up, even as federal support for climate resilience and environmental justice collapses.

Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has wasted no time dismantling climate justice programs. His “Day One” executive orders terminated all federal environmental justice offices and staff, scrapped the Justice40 initiative, and reopened large swaths of the U.S. coast to offshore drilling. His administration has revoked a decades-old executive order requiring agencies to prioritize environmental justice in their missions, taken key tools — like the Environmental Protection Agency’s EJScreen — offline, and cut core funding programs, including disaster preparedness grants. And through the “Big Beautiful Bill,” Trump has gutted the Inflation Reduction Act’s environmental and climate justice program — slashing billions once earmarked for clean air, clean water, and green jobs in overburdened communities.

These rollbacks are not just performative political retribution. They are already threatening lives and livelihoods in communities across the country.

This is especially true in coastal cities, home to more than 47 million people, where rising seas and stronger storms are colliding with long-standing patterns of inequality, nearly 60 percent of coastal city residents are people of color — compared to 37 percent nationally. These cities also have higher rates of poverty, unemployment, rent burden, and non-citizenship. That means when disaster strikes — whether from hurricanes in the Gulf or nor’easters in New York — the communities with the fewest resources to recover are often the ones hardest hit.

In these cities, climate justice is more than a policy priority – it’s a survival strategy.

At Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank for the future of coastal cities, we spoke with local officials nationwide about how they’re navigating this new reality. Our new report shares what we learned — and what’s still possible.

Despite a hostile federal landscape, cities are forging ahead. They’re creating local funding streams, investing in community-led planning, and embedding justice into their governments and operational DNA. 

In Oakland, every strategy in the Equitable Climate Action Plan is evaluated for its racial equity impact. In Seattle, the Race and Social Justice Initiative — now law — requires all city departments to review budgets and programs through an equity lens. This is real institutional change.

While the federal government wipes crucial data resources, cities recognize information is integral. In San Diego, the Climate Equity Index maps where environmental risks overlap with socioeconomic vulnerability, guiding city investments in stormwater upgrades, green space, and climate infrastructure. In New York City, the EJNYC Mapping Tool brings together over 100 datasets to highlight environmental burdens in places like the Rockaways and South Bronx — both low-lying areas with aging infrastructure and long histories of disinvestment. These tools help cities steer investments to the neighborhoods that need them most.

As federal funding evaporates, many cities are strengthening ties with frontline organizations — the local experts who’ve been leading the fight for decades. In New Orleans, the Climate Action Equity Project brings community leaders from every city district to co-design resilience strategies, from flood protection to coastal restoration. In Providence, Rhode Island, the Green Justice Zones initiative puts neighborhood groups in charge of planning for flooding and extreme heat in the city’s most vulnerable areas.

And where national workforce programs are shrinking, cities are building their own pipelines of green jobs. Cleveland is equipping youth from frontline communities with skills to restore urban forests and protect neighborhoods from flooding and water pollution. In New Orleans, programs like Ground CREW and Thrive prepare BIPOC and low-income residents to lead neighborhood-scale stormwater and flood resilience projects.

This is what climate justice looks like: tactical, community-rooted, and relentless. It’s also what real leadership looks like — in sharp contrast to the political theater playing out in Washington.

While Trump stages press conferences and bill signings to celebrate the dismantling of hard-won protections, local governments are doing the real work of protecting lives, preparing for future storms, and closing the equity gap. The stakes aren’t theoretical. They’re physical — crashing into coastal communities and people’s lives. And they’re growing more urgent every year.

We don’t need to wait for the Trump administration to get its act together. But we also can’t let cities do this work alone.

Philanthropy, state governments, and the private sector all have a role to play in sustaining and scaling the solutions already working at the local level. From backing climate justice funds to supporting green workforce programs, the time to invest is now. Because the fight for a just, climate-resilient future won’t wait — and neither will the next disaster.

Calla Rosenfeld is a climate policy analyst and research fellow at the nonprofit think tank Urban Ocean Lab. Her work focuses on coastal climate resilience.