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The Miller Worley Center for the Environment held its second Summit on Feminist Leadership in Climate Justice from April 24 to 26, 2025, which featured talks from global experts, local scholars and community organizers. Attendees also had the opportunity to network, explore student research and take part in a hands-on workshop from . 

The summit began with remarks from Olivia Aguilar, the Leslie and Sarah Miller director of the Miller Worley Center for the Environment and recent AASHE Fellowship awardee, who spoke about the vision for creating this event.

“We wanted to ensure that we were hearing from the people who are doing the hard work on climate justice, especially the ones disproportionately burdened by the climate crisis. These are often women, nonbinary people and youth,” she said. “We've tried to be very intentional about gathering people here so that we can imagine a radical future, build community and find hope through action.” 

To avoid the carbon emissions associated with travel, all three of the event’s keynote speakers participated virtually. The first keynote speaker was , who is a Waorani leader, Goldman Environmental Prize winner, co-founder of Ceibo Alliance and Amazon Frontlines, and coauthor of the acclaimed memoir

Speaking from the Ecuadorian Amazon, Nenquimo said that climate action and advocacy for climate justice transcends nationalities and borders.

“Continuous resistance happens at the level of the community, at the level of organizations and then, more generally, in the rural sectors,” she said via a translator. “So that's what I would like for the students and the teachers to understand. What we're fighting for is not a fight for Indigenous people; we need to fight for all of you because it is in our territory that we are producing the capacity for all of you to breathe.”

The second keynote speech was given by , the first and youngest African American woman to serve as mayor of Greenville, Mississippi, and author of “Before the Streetlights Come On.” 

She spoke about her fight for environmental and climate justice and their impacts on Black America, emphasizing the disproportionate impact of pollution on marginalized communities. 

“Environmental justice infiltrates every single aspect of our life, particularly when people who are most impacted do not have access to the rectification of environmental injustices,” she said. “I can quickly and very vividly recall watching crop dusters fly across the highway in the Mississippi Delta and recall people, human beings, standing out in the middle of those fields. It never dawned on me that that was toxic pollution that we had embraced and accepted as a reality so that the rest of the world could be fixed.” 

The event’s third keynote speech came from , vice president of people and culture at . She discussed the deep importance of ordinary people working together on climate policy. 

“It is very important to know who represents you at all levels of government,” she said as she described the work of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby. “We meet you where you are. We empower you to be the change you need.” 

Ramirez reminded everyone in the audience that “climate advocacy is for everyone.”