CBH Talk | Building Postcarbon Futures

In honor of Climate Week, join us for a conversation about what it will take to build a more just and sustainable future. 

As the impacts of climate change intensify, the question is no longer whether we must transform the systems that power our lives, it is how. In July 2025, the International Court of Justice issued a landmark advisory opinion affirming that nations have a legal obligation to take meaningful action to address climate change, particularly industrialized nations that have contributed most to the crisis. The ruling underscores an urgent challenge: how can we build a postcarbon future that not only reduces emissions, but also creates more just, equitable, and resilient communities?

This conversation takes inspiration from Billy Fleming's new book, Building Postcarbon Futures: Land, Justice, and Energy Transitions, which highlights 29 innovative climate justice projects from around the world. From Indigenous-led wildfire management in Australia and geothermal energy development in British Columbia to social housing initiatives in São Paulo, these case studies illustrate how communities are reimagining the relationship between people, land, energy, and the built environment.

Drawing on these examples, Fleming joins leading voices in climate policy, architecture, planning, and law including Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Keller Easterling, to explore what it will take to create a more sustainable and equitable future. Together, they'll examine how the decisions we make today, from infrastructure investments to land use and energy policy, can help address the climate crisis while advancing environmental justice for generations to come.

This program is presented in partnership with The Architectural League as part of their Architecture, Planning and International Law series, and the Climate and Community Institute.

Participants

Daniel Aldana Cohen works on the intersections of the climate emergency, housing, political economy, social movements, and inequalities of race and class in the United States and Brazil. Cohen is assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is director of the Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative, and serves as a faculty affiliate in the graduate program on political economy. He is also a founding co-director of the Climate and Community Institute, a progressive climate and economy think tank. Cohen’s research and writing have been published widely in both academic journals and public outlets. He is the co-author of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal (2019).

Keller Easterling is a designer, writer, and the Enid Storm Dwyer Professor of Architecture at Yale. Her forthcoming book,Your Land, tells the story of land activism in the US after the civil rights movement. Previous books include Medium Design (2021) and Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space (2014), among others. Easterling has lectured and exhibited internationally. Her research and writing were included in the 2014 and 2018 Venice Biennales. Easterling is a 2019 United States Artist in Architecture and Design and the 2026 recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Architecture.

The conversation will be moderated by Billy Fleming, a leading voice on the role of design in responding to the climate crisis in our cities, communities, and landscapes. Fleming is a founding codirector of the Climate and Community Institute and assistant professor of landscape architecture at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia. Previously, he was the inaugural Wilks Family Director of the Ian L. McHarg Center at the University of Pennsylvania and an urban policy advisor to the Obama administration. He is coeditor of Design with Nature Now (2019) and A Blueprint for Coastal Adaptation: Uniting Design, Economics, and Policy (2021).