The Environmental Justice and Climate Justice in the Carolinas initiative supports four research projects focusing on diverse aspects of climate and environmental justice in the Carolinas with funding from The Duke Endowment. These projects will be led by Duke faculty from Law, Engineering, Nicholas, Divinity and the Nicholas Institute and will leverage collaborator and partner expertise from across the university and beyond.

The projects received up to $150,000 and project management support from the Office of the Vice President for Research. All projects run from July 2024 to June 2026. This work is supported by Duke’s offices of Durham & Community Affairs, Climate and Sustainability, Faculty Advancement, and Interdisciplinary Studies collaborated on the request for proposals.

Projects include the following:

  • Cooling Communities: Strategic Partnerships for Energy Equity in the Carolinas – This project aims to assess the feasibility of a parametric insurance model triggered by high temperatures and explore community-based strategies to mitigate heat exposure.
  • Environmental Justice for West Badin, NC – This project seeks to harness West Badin’s expertise to develop and implement a community-driven research plan that addresses environmental degradation associated with an Alcoa aluminum smelter that operated in the predominantly minority community from 1917 to 2007.
  • Ground Truth: Empowering Rural Communities of the Eastern N.C. Coastal Plain to Safeguard Their Neurological Health – Climate change has disproportionately impacted the rural communities of the Albemarle-Pamlico Sounds of eastern North Carolina, where increased temperatures and precipitation have resulted in chronic exposure to Cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (CHABs). This project’s objective is to create a sustainable system of CHAB surveillance and prediction that will support real-time public health advisories to limit community exposure and discover environmental neurotoxins that are associated with ALS.
  • Remote Sensing and Environmental Justice in Robeson County – Air and water pollution from industrial-scale production of swine and poultry have disproportionately harmed low-wealth communities of color in eastern North Carolina. In collaboration with community partners, this project seeks to train community members in the use of drones to monitor air quality, and then quantify local methane pollution. Based on results, the team will conduct workshops with community members to develop data-informed regulatory and policy proposals, including training to help community members better engage in state regulatory and permitting processes.