The panel “Impacts of the Fossil Fuel Industry in North America” was held on Wednesday, June 25th, during the Global Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice: Path to COP30 and

The panel “Impacts of the Fossil Fuel Industry in North America” was held on Wednesday, June 25th, during the Global Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice: Path to COP30 and Beyond hosted by Women’s Earth and Climate Network (WECAN), June 23-28, 2025.
PANELISTS:
— Sharon Lavigne, Founder and President of RISE St. James, Turtle Island/USA
— Tara Houska (Couchiching First Nation Anishinaabe), Tribal Attorney and Founder of Giniw Collective, Line 3 pipeline Resistance Leader, Turtle Island/USA
— Nalleli Cobo, Climate Activist & Storyteller, 2022 Goldman Prize winner, Co-founder of People not Pozos and South Central Youth Leadership Coalition, Turtle Island/USA
— Laalitha Surapaneni, MD, MPH, Internist and Assistant Professor of Medicine, USA/India

Organized by the Women’s Earth and Climate Network (WECAN), the Global Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice: Path to COP30 and Beyond brought together over 125 grassroots and frontline women leaders in all their diversity, global advocates, thought leaders, and policymakers representing 50 countries from around the world. During 25 unique panels, speakers showcased a diverse array of visions, projects, policy frameworks, campaigns, and movement strategies with which we can accelerate a bold and transformative path to a healthy and just world.

Nalleli Cobo, now 20, has acted as an extraordinarily effective Environmental Justice activist since she was 9 (years before Greta Thunberg began her school strike). She lived in South Los Angeles

Nalleli Cobo, now 20, has acted as an extraordinarily effective Environmental Justice activist since she was 9 (years before Greta Thunberg began her school strike). She lived in South Los Angeles across the street from an oil drilling site. Her mother and many neighbors suffered from a range of illnesses, and Cobo herself had heart palpitations, headaches and nosebleeds so severe that she had to sleep sitting up lest she choke on her own blood.

Nalleli became one of the leading voices demanding the site be shuttered, and she has become an internationally renowned, award-winning Environmental Justice activist. She shares the story of her trajectory and challenges, the importance of the ongoing struggles in which she’s engaged, the very high price she and many people in disenfranchised communities continue to pay, and how local struggles relate to the larger global fight for Climate Justice.

This talk was delivered at the 2021 Bioneers Conference.

Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org