Texas Southern Mickey Leland Scholars Join HBCU Student Delegation

Environmental Defense Fund

The Texas Clean Air Matters team is thrilled to share that the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Climate Change Consortium sent 50 student leaders from around the United States to the U.N. COP21 climate summit in Paris, three of whom are Texas Southern University students awarded with the Mickey Leland Scholarship. These students represent future environmentalists, who could have a large impact on the future of Texas in terms of solving the climate crisis. This delegation of students was able to witness the construction of the agreement and had a chance to see countries reach a historic agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stabilizing global temperatures. You can read more about them in this guest post by Dr. Robert Bullard, one of the foremost experts on environmental justice in the world.

EDF is excited these students had such an amazing opportunity and to witness first hand climate diplomacy in action.

The Historically Black Colleges and Universities Climate Change Consortium sent a delegation of 50 student leaders and faculty mentors to the United Nations COP21 Climate Summit in Paris. The HBCU COP21 delegation included 15 schools in states stretching from Texas to Pennsylvania. Three Texas Southern University Mickey Leland Scholars, Steve Washington, N. Jenise Young and Joy Simien, are student team leaders in the delegation. The summit ran from November 30 to December 11, 2015 and brought together more than 125 world leaders, international organizations and civil society to discuss plans to achieve a new international agreement on the climate. read more