Colette Pichon Battle

Colette Pichon Battle is an American climate activist and lawyer, who founded the climate justice and human rights center The Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy. She was a TED speaker, and a 2019 Obama Foundation fellow.[1] She is best known for advocating for the needs of communities of color in the face of the Climate crisis in the Gulf Coast of the United States.[2][3][4]

Colette Pichon Battle, 2023 photograph

Life

Battle was raised in Bayou Liberty, Bonfouca, Louisiana. She attended Kenyon College (class of 1997), from Slidell, majoring in international studies, and took a law degree at Southern University Law Center in 2002.[5] She was chosen as an Echoing Green Climate Fellow in 2015,[6] was recognised as a White House Champion of Change for Climate Equity in 2016,[7] and received an Honorary Doctorate from Kenyon College in 2018. She was recognised as an Obama Fellow in 2019,[8] for her work with climate change-affected Black and Native communities. She received the title of Margaret Burroughs Community Fellow in 2021.[9]

The Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy

Battle oversaw the legal services in immigration and disaster law and created advocacy campaigns for the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy (GCCLP). After the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, Moving Forward Gulf Coast, Inc. launched the GCCLP as a program. Residents in five states had to traverse legal and political procedures while dealing with tragedy and trauma, which had a long-term effect on their capacity to heal from the disaster and their human right to go home. Following the BP Oil Drilling Disaster,[10] GCCLP added class action legal counsel to its work in 2011. In its first year, it recovered more than $1 million in claims that had previously been denied to claimants.

As the organization's creator and co-executive director, Battle created programming with a focus on just disaster recovery, international migration, local economic growth, climate justice, and energy democracy.[11] In 2022 the GCCLP became Taproot Earth.[12]

References

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