No New Fossil Fuels

Zion Claude

We are proud to have been able to support the work of Zion Claude, one of two fellows who assisted Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) on their No New Fossil Fuels campaign. CCAN is committed to hiring fellows from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and first-generation college students of color.

Zion is a political science major at Virginia State University. As CCAN’s Hampton Roads Fellow, she focused on grassroots work in communities most affected by energy policies, with initiatives centered around pipeline opposition, public transportation, sea level rise, and coalition building. Her first project for the No New Fossil Fuels campaign involved capturing qualitative data from community members about public transportation. She developed a flyer that is connected to a feedback survey with the hope that community members will submit data about their experience using mass transit; this flyer was put up around Hampton Roads, Virginia, and will ultimately be placed in other metropolitan areas around the state. 

Zion’s next big project focused on sea level rise in Hampton Roads. The Governor of Virginia released a framework that will guide the Commonwealth towards a statewide Coastal Resiliency Plan by December 2021. Zion helped CCAN use the goals of this plan to organize community education and outreach efforts. 

Learn more about our Climate Intersections program here!