An American champion for better air quality just garnered significant recognition for her work.
This week, it was announced that southern California-based activist Andrea Vidaurre was named as a 2024 Goldman Prize winner.
The Goldman Prize is designed to, as officials put it, “celebrat[e] grassroots environmental leaders who take significant action for our planet.” Vidaurre earned the distinction through her work as the founder and leader of the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, which serves Southern California’s Inland Empire. Specifically, she organized local residents and worked with members of the California Air Resources Board on the adoption of regulations intended to significantly curb emissions from trucks and trains.
One of those measures is historic – it’s the first emissions rule for trains ever enacted in the entire U.S. But both policies hold the potential to “substantially improve air quality for millions of Californians, while accelerating the country’s transition to zero-emission vehicles,” Goldman Prize officials say.
The policies were formally approved last year following a years-long effort by Vidaurre, who had watched the region suffer from pervasive, ongoing air pollution problem. “This [problem] is very profit-driven, and it’s targeted in communities of color,” Vidaurre told The Guardian, adding that the area’s Latino population has disproportionately suffered.
She also got officials to engage directly with the issue. “It was super impactful that the decision-makers came to the communities – to see how close warehouses are to schools, to feel the ground moving from the trains, and see the pile of asthma medications some kids take.”
That’s critical, she adds, because “we cannot keep making regulations based on the status quo on what the industry lobbyists say is economically viable – we need solutions that address the problems.”
And those problems are significant. Studies show that, as of 2023, only 10% of vehicles on American roads are medium or heavy-duty trucks, but they ultimately emit 25% of the greenhouse gases that come from all modes of transport. Meanwhile, trains produce 640 tons of toxic particles into the air each year.
Noted Vidaurre: “We need to make a better system for moving goods that will protect our air, communities and the planet from freight. There’s no more time to waste.”
In addition to the 29-year-old organizer, the adjudicating body selecting the winners also named Indigenous activist duo Nonhle Mbuthuma and Sinegugu Zukulu of South Africa, who together achieved a stoppage in seismic testing for oil and gas off of the country’s Eastern Cape, and Teresa Vicente, who saved Europe’s largest saltwater lagoon from collapsing through a grassroots campaign. Seven winners were selected this year in all.
To date, 226 individuals from 95 countries have received the prestigious honor since it was first founded in 1989 by billionaire philanthropists Richard and Rhoda Goldman.
