Shape Alaskan Climate Policy
FCAC engages with local and statewide leaders to pass concrete policies around climate justice. At the borough level, we organize and mobilize community members to engage with the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly and statewide with the Alaska legislature.
Across the country, we are seeing people feel apathetic about the government and increasingly disengaging. This leads to leadership that does not represent or address the needs of the people. The greater Fairbanks community and Alaska as a whole is a uniquely bipartisan and, often, nonpartisan community. With over 50,000 voters registered as Nonpartisan or Undeclared in the Fairbanks North Star Borough and surrounding areas, there is immense opportunity for engaging across party lines on important issues that transcend ideological differences.
We want our community to feel their own agency over their local government. Through education, community engagement, policy development, and relationship tending with elected leaders, FCAC seeks to move interior Alaska towards a more just, sustainable, and adaptable community. Our work seeks to uplift the strengths, voices, and interests of community members to ensure our governments center the needs and wants of the people they serve.
Shaping Alaskan Climate Policy means:
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Starting in 2019, FCAC led a 5 year campaign to pass a borough-wide Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (CAAP). In 2022, 3 years into planning and development, the Borough Assembly election resulted in a majority of representatives opposing the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. The plan was gutted and then voted down in June, 2023. FCAC led voter turnout efforts that resulted in new members elected to the Borough Assembly who supported clear climate action. Because of this, the new assembly reintroduced the full CAAP and passed it in June 2024. This was a huge win for our whole community and provides a roadmap to improving health outcomes and mitigating climate impacts moving forward!
We are now working with local Borough Assembly members on the implementation of the plan. We passed our first ordinance in 2025 that put the plan into action!
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Engagement with local government and local elections in the Fairbanks North Star Borough and across Alaska is extremely low. FCAC educates the community to support individuals to engage with their local government and elections to make the changes that affect their everyday lives. We share information, put out calls to action and organize community members to directly engage with our elected representatives. We’ve seen the community respond to these efforts and seek to expand them to widen our reach in the community.
During election cycles, we lead Get-Out-the-Vote efforts through social media, phone banking and canvassing. We partner with statewide and national organizations to ensure Alaskans have the information they need to make their voices heard at the polls.
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FCAC is a founding member and continues to be fundamental in the Alaska Climate Alliance (ACA), a statewide coalition that coordinates climate justice policy efforts across Alaska's diverse communities and regions. The Alliance brings together organizations from across the state to amplify collective power, share strategic learnings, and coordinate on campaigns that require statewide mobilization.
As the broader Alaskan climate & conservation communities have come into deeper alignment with Just Transition principles, the Alliance has also prioritized centering Indigenous leadership, bringing that perspective to the movement as a whole. FCAC provides staff support for coalition coordination, strategic planning assistance, and communications that helps amplify the collective voice of Alaska's climate movement. This work strengthens both our local organizing capacity and our ability to influence state-level policy decisions that affect Interior Alaska communities. The ACA's established a statewide climate justice policy platform for the 2026 legislative session and was able to coordinate a fly-in to Juneau with organizations across the state.
Fund the Fight:
Any amount helps. By donating, you enable us to:
Organize community members around strategic campaigns, like the local Climate Action Plan
Organize fly-ins so that community members can speak directly to legislators
Research and write policy proposals
Train community members in campaign strategies, organizing, voter outreach, and issue advocacy
Convene statewide coalition spaces, like the Alaska Climate Alliance
Host get out the vote events