A handful of Allegheny County residents and environmental advocates huddled around a table last week in downtown Pittsburgh to discuss how much focus environmental justice should have in the county’s first climate action plan – and even what environmental justice should mean.
“You have to focus on minority groups and indigenous groups because they are the most affected,” said Emma Doonan, a grad student in North Oakland.
The June 4 public listening session was one of just two final opportunities for residents to make their voices heard before the initial draft of the county’s climate plan is released in August. A final, virtual opportunity is planned for June 24.
Council voted in 2023 to create a climate action plan that would help the county prioritize how to reduce emissions and build resilience to a warming climate. When the county first awarded a contract to develop the plan nine months later, some environmental advocates said the lead consultant was hired too quickly and worried that underrepresented voices would be excluded from the planning process.
Washington, D.C.-based sustainability consultant Alyssa Lyon, who was hired in response to some of these concerns, led last week’s environmental justice discussion. She said that session was one example of how the county has made more of an effort to include as many voices as possible.
“Marginalized groups have survived on scraps,” Lyon told the group. “Imagine if they had more than scraps, imagine if they would be thriving. I think that’s ultimately what we want.”
But several attendees said they were still worried about how the final product might look.
Brendan Wissinger, a member of the Sunrise Movement in Pittsburgh, said outside events, like “the data center boom and Trump coming to office” are undermining progress on environmental justice across Pennsylvania. One of the proposed strategies listed at the event was “building data centers sustainably,” which, Wissinger and several others agreed, was comparable to calls for “sustainable fossil fuels” or “clean coal.”
Zena Ruiz, of North Braddock, said she was worried that the force of the climate plan could be undermined by the county’s concurrent effort to develop a broader comprehensive plan focused on economic growth and investments.
“I would like to see whatever is developed as a statement about environmental justice is mirrored in the Allegheny Forward comprehensive plan,” she said.
Earlier in the evening, Ruiz had stopped by one of the other seven stations at the event, each of which focused on a different area, like transportation or buildings. Ruiz made a point to stop at the station on industrial emissions, a serious concern of hers in North Braddock. She wrote questions on sticky notes about what the plan will do to address the region’s industrial pollution and whether the county’s clean air fund will provide resources to environmental justice communities.
Brittany Prischak, the director of Allegheny County’s Department of Sustainability, which is leading the creation of the climate plan, said during a presentation at the start of the public meeting that industrial emissions account for more than a third of the county’s total emissions. Of those, about 80% come from U.S. Steel’s three Mon Valley facilities, according to the county’s greenhouse gas inventory.
That’s why, Prischak said, per capita emissions are so much higher here than in Philadelphia. “It’s primarily due to our industry,” Prischak said. “We have a lot more industry emissions in this region than elsewhere across the state of Pennsylvania and even across the country.”
Although most of the people at the standing-room-only meeting were longtime environmental activists, a few were not. Claire Gatz, of Shadyside, found out about the meeting through a group at BNY, where she works, and attended the meeting with her boyfriend, Antonio Evans. Evans wants the county to focus more on its pedestrian infrastructure. Both think that the specific actions that the county says it will target, like “accelerate replacement of gas pipelines” need to be more concrete.
“Who are we working with to do that?” Gatz said.
The role of municipal climate plans, in general, has changed since the county council initially approved the creation of a plan in 2023. There had been some hope, after Donald Trump was first elected in 2016, that local governments, like Pittsburgh’s, could take the lead in driving climate change solutions. But the city found out in 2024 that its emissions had largely flatlined for a decade, despite three increasingly sophisticated climate action plans that were meant to reduce emissions. The city was supposed to update its plan in 2022 but did not.
From a June 4, 2026 public input session on Allegheny County’s Climate Action Plan, in downtown Pittsburgh. (Photo by Oliver Morrison/Pittsburgh’s Public Source) 
From a June 4, 2026 public input session on Allegheny County’s Climate Action Plan, in downtown Pittsburgh. (Photo by Oliver Morrison/Pittsburgh’s Public Source) 
From a June 4, 2026 public input session on Allegheny County’s Climate Action Plan, in downtown Pittsburgh. (Photo by Oliver Morrison/Pittsburgh’s Public Source) 
From a June 4, 2026 public input session on Allegheny County’s Climate Action Plan, in downtown Pittsburgh. (Photo by Oliver Morrison/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)
Flore Marion, the assistant director of sustainability and resilience in Pittsburgh’s planning department, attended the county’s planning meeting. “The city is looking forward to develop their update to the city’s climate action plan and is actively looking to develop a plan that works in synergy with the state and the county,” Marion said Monday in an emailed statement.
Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection, by contrast, has continued to faithfully produce a climate action plan every three years, even as some climate activists are still angry at Gov. Josh Shapiro for backing out of plans to join a regional greenhouse gas initiative. The department held its own public listening session on Saturday in Homewood.
Editor’s note: The story was updated to include a statement from the City of Pittsburgh.
Oliver Morrison is the health and environment reporter at Pittsburgh’s Public Source and can be reached at oliver@publicsource.org.
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