Al-Shiney Ajay first became aware of the climate crisis in his late teens, when he visited family in India and watched in horror as disaster after disaster struck his loved ones, including air pollution in his parents’ home state of Kerala and Delhi.
“The climate crisis isn’t just something in the background, it’s something that’s already here,” she said. “That’s really why I got involved with Sunrise.”
The Sunrise Movement was founded in 2017 by young climate activists frustrated by the mismatch between accelerating global disasters and the sluggish pace of existing environmental organizations.
Theirs is a different movement: one organised by young people, for young people, and one that is not afraid to confront those in power directly and dramatically.
They burst onto the national stage just a year later, when about 150 lawmakers gathered in the office of Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) to demand that the newly elected Democratic majority commit to a Green New Deal.
Shiny Ajayi, then a Swarthmore College student and volunteer trainer, helped coordinate the highly publicized effort on Capitol Hill. After the success of the effort, she decided to drop out of college and work full time for Sunrise.
Last October, after months of selection and election by Sunrise volunteer representatives, Shiny Adjaye was appointed executive director of the organisation.
She is the second person to lead the organization, which is based in Washington, DC, and serves thousands of members in 118 locations in cities, towns and campuses across the U.S., including 15 locations in California alone.
“She is one of the most intelligent and compassionate leaders I have ever met,” founding director Varshini Prakash said last year. “I am confident that under her leadership, Sunrise will reach new heights.”
Shiny Adjei, 26, takes on leadership roles at a highly charged time in American politics. The Democratic nominations of Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz have energized young progressive voters who were deeply skeptical of both President Biden and former President Trump, but the outcome of the November election remains uncertain. Protests against violence in Gaza and Israel have sent college campuses into a frenzy. Meanwhile, temperatures are rising, acres of land are burning, and the time left to save the sweltering planet seems to be approaching zero.
The Times spoke with Shiny Adjayeh this summer; the conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What is it like leading Sunrise after joining as a volunteer?
I feel like I have fulfilled my life’s purpose. Facing the greatest crisis in human history, working with hope and determination alongside people I can trust, has given me so much meaning and energy. Sunrise gave me that when I was a member, and to be able to give that back to thousands more people feels like a privilege to me.
What attracted you to Sunrise as a new member?
I have never seen an organization with such a clear vision of what it takes to stop the climate crisis, or such serious thought about the leverage it takes to get there.
They were saying, “OK, what we’re going to do is get the Democratic Party to recognize the urgency of the climate crisis. We’re going to expose the corrupting influence of fossil fuel billionaires in politics. We’re going to link the issue of good, green union jobs to climate change and make it clear that this is not a choice between jobs and the climate.”
They were truly defining interventions that opened up a whole new realm of possibilities.
What does Sunrise mean when it comes to wanting a Green New Deal?
The easiest way to think about this is to think about the New Deal, which wasn’t just one piece of legislation, but a series of bills, executive actions, and local rulings enacted over several years (during the Great Depression) that transformed not only the legislative environment but also the economic and cultural environment of society.
That’s exactly what we need to stop the climate crisis: legislation at every level of government, change in every sector of society. That’s what the Green New Deal is about.
Where are you at Sunrise right now? What are your priorities at the moment?
(After Congress passed the bill) we decided it was time to build on some of those wins locally, and so we launched and .
It was a way for us to win locally, but also to develop leaders and build a foundation, and we’ve been doing that for the past few years.
Whatever happens in this election, we’re really geared up to come back and take the fight to the federal level, and we’re starting to do that this year with.
what’s that?
This is a campaign to get President Biden to declare a climate emergency, which would basically invoke a whole range of executive powers. We are facing record-breaking temperatures, floods, fires, hurricanes. This is an emergency, and we need the full force of the federal government to do everything we can to stop this.
What misconceptions do people have about your organization and the people it represents?
What we’re asking for is not unreasonable. It’s not unrealistic. It’s actually what best fits the physical realities of the world. I think the older I get, the more I think I think within the limits of my political imagination, not the limits of what I literally have to do to save the lives of millions of people.
Some people think the Green New Deal is idealistic or unrealistic. In fact, I think it’s the politicians who are unrealistic about where we are.
Sunrise is for young people. Do members have to pack up and quit when they turn 35?
As long as young people are in charge, we welcome any collaboration. We have a lot of people over 35 at the Hub who can help run the logistics of training, plan actions, and impart wisdom on how to pass legislation in their cities.
What does this generation understand that previous generations don’t?
This generation has grown up hearing about the impacts of the climate crisis since elementary school, so they know it is an existential threat.
I also think this generation really cares about justice and equality, and we’re not the single-issue voter that people thought we were 15 or 20 years ago.
When we spoke earlier this year, before President Biden withdrew from the election, you said your members were very discouraged by the possibility of a Biden vs. Trump rematch. Where do you stand on the election now?
Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy and the climate. Losing another four years to a president who pledges to aggressively advance fossil fuel extraction would be planetary suicide, which is why Sunrise will do everything in our power to stop him from being elected.
VP Harris’ record on climate is much more promising. As Attorney General of California, she sued oil and gas companies for pollution and the Obama Administration for fracking. As Vice President, she helped secure passage of the Inflation Control Act, the most significant climate bill ever in the United States. If she becomes President, she has a real chance of passing bold legislation to address the climate crisis.
What is your message to young voters?
Our generation can change the course of politics. We protested, voted, and struck in large numbers to win a climate change bill, an Office to Prevent Gun Violence, student loan relief, and prescription drug price caps. If we vote for Harris in November, and then rally, protest, and demand the scale of legislation we need, we will win the world we deserve.
Why has Gaza become such an important part of Sunrise’s message?
We are a youth movement, and the reality is that there are huge numbers of young people speaking out against the Gaza war right now. We think it’s important to understand this as an election issue, alongside climate change. The scale of casualties and destruction is huge, and it’s a big issue for a lot of young people.
What are some of the more difficult decisions you have to make as a leader?
Whenever a law is passed, there is a judgment to be made about how much to say, ‘That’s not good enough,’ and how much to say, ‘Thank goodness they did that.’ It’s always a strategic calculation.
One of the strengths of young people is that they can demand the biggest and the boldest things. But if you always demand the biggest and the boldest things, it becomes hard for them to feel like they are winning, and people will walk away feeling like they are not winning anything.
How have you evolved as an activist? Is there anything about Aru in 2024 that would surprise you compared to Aru in 2017?
I think I’ve become really disciplined about hope. It’s easy to look at the world and feel like everything is falling apart. What Sunrise has taught me, and what I’ve learned from the world around me, is that hope comes through collective action, but it also takes practice. You never know what spark will ignite something. Just having hope within yourself can ignite that hope in others.
