Colette Pichon Battle

Colette Pichon Battle is a lawyer and climate justice organizer whose work centers on advancing climate strategies for frontline communities, particularly in the areas of water, energy, and land stewardship. As a generational native of Bayou Liberty, Louisiana, Pichon Battle has been recognized with several awards, including the Heinz Award for the Environment, the Catalyst Award from Rachel's Network, and the William O. Douglas Award. She has also been named a White House Champion of Change for Climate Equity and received an honorary doctorate from Kenyon College.

Pichon Battle, formerly a corporate lawyer, is the co-founder and Vision & Initiatives Partner for Taproot Earth. She is known for her use of legal and judicial processes to achieve environmental justice and climate resilience. After leading the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy's development of programming focused on equitable climate resilience in the Gulf South, she expanded her efforts through Taproot Earth, building on her experience with GCCLP and movement partners across the South. Pichon Battle founded GCCLP in response to the exclusion of Black and Indigenous communities from federal recovery systems following Hurricane Katrina. She also co-founded and led the Red, Black & Green New Deal, a national climate initiative for the Movement for Black Lives. Her TED Talk on climate migration was ranked among the top 10 TED Talks.