The Governors’ Climate and Forests (GCF) Task Force and the Laboratory for Energy and Environmental Policy innovation (LEEP) join with others across the United States and around the world to condemn racism and oppression in all forms. As a global network, we are committed to building, fostering, and ensuring safe, collaborative relationships and a working environment that values human rights and human dignity, diversity, equity, and inclusion. We commit to the following practices as we continue our work with our members and partners around the world:
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We stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and other movements around the world that bring the stark realties of marginalized and oppressed communities to the fore. We affirm that “silence is violence” and support safe spaces and practices for protest, dialogue, and co-construction of better structural and practical approaches to address and reverse centuries of oppression and injustice toward black people, people of color, minorities, Indigenous Peoples, women, and other oppressed populations.
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We will re-evaluate how we function as a global network and laboratory by taking a hard look inward to reassess the ways in which we may be individually and collectively perpetuating racism, privilege, bias, and structural inequities in our work and in our daily lives. We will reform oppressive processes and structures and develop practices across our network to ensure that the GCF Task Force and LEEP serve as safe spaces for dialogue and action that is antiracist and anti-oppressive as we work to fulfill our network’s broader mission.
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In our public fora, we will call upon the GCF Task Force Governors, Secretaries, and key partners to use their positions of leadership to speak and act to end racial oppression in all forms. We will strive to mobilize the leaders who work within and in partnership with our network to take an unwavering stance that condemns racism and injustice toward all people and works to create inclusive structures and practices that celebrate human diversity, cultures, and rights, and ensure safety and respect for all.