Fenceline Watch Joins Partner Organization to Confront CERAWeek
Last week, Fenceline Watch, along with dozens of tribal nations, community members, organizers, activists, and organizations from across the country, gathered in Houston to provide community-based counterprogramming to the S&P’s annual CERAWeek Conference & World Petrochemical Conference in downtown Houston.
What are CERAWeek and the World Petrochemical Conference?
These conferences are where executives and financial stakeholders in the oil, gas, and petrochemical industries make decisions about how they will continue to expand worldwide, placing harmful infrastructure in our communities. 2026 marked the first time that S&P held these conferences simultaneously, signaling that these industries want more intermingling, especially as the fossil fuel industry pivots away from energy and more toward unwanted plastics and chemical byproducts.
Why Fenceline Watch Was Involved
With these conferences taking place in our hometown, we must provide a voice for the communities we represent. Three miles away, executives are making decisions that will impact our communities, and the barrier to entering those spaces is a $10,000 ticket. Even when we do raise the money, they deny our request because they don’t want to hear about the effects their facilities have on our health and the environment. We worked alongside Texas Campaign for the Environment to lead programming that uplifts partners and collaborators doing similar work nationwide.
We confronted CERAWeek with passion and love for our communities, and with demands that these habitual polluters be held accountable for the multi-generational toxic harm they cause, all for the sake of a dollar.
We CONNECTED.
Day One of #ConfrontingCERAWeek Fenceline Watch led the coordination of a community event at Mason Park in the Historic East End of Houston. The community event organizers felt it was important to connect with the community and meet them where they live.
Over 300 people attended to hear panels from indigenous groups that focused on the rights of nature; what roles the oil & gas industry plays in perpetuating war, especially what’s going on right now in Palestine; and how we can work together to achieve a sustainable mutual aid system.
The bilingual event brought together not only activists and environmental justice organizations but also local organizations like the Houston Public Library and Texas Children’s Medical Plan. We had opening remarks from our Super Neighborhoods 65 & 82 to welcome this movement to protect the well-being of communities around the world that face the impacts of unchecked greed.
We SHARED.
The second day of #ConfrontingCERAWeek was about knowledge and skill sharing. We began the day bright and early with a toxic tour for other organizations, during which we drove around communities in Houston and East Harris County that are most impacted by petrochemical infrastructure. Representatives from partner organizations shared their perspectives on how the petrochemical industry benefits from and influences the war in Gaza and the federal government’s imperialistic seizure of lands and resources from sovereign nations.
Later that day, we joined more than a dozen other organizations to lead workshops for Confronting CERAWeek attendees, training them in skills to deepen their understanding of the issues we are campaigning against and to help organizations and community members combat oil, gas, & petrochemical expansion. Our workshop focused on the issues posed by hazardous chemical facilities managed under the Risk Management Program (RMP) and on how to access the RMP reading rooms for more information about RMP facilities. Keep a lookout for a webinar on that covers this topic.
We MARCHED.
On the last day of collective actions, Fenceline Watch linked arms with old and new partners at Houston’s City Hall. Our Policy Director Shiv Srivastava spoke at the opening rally before we marched to the George R. Brown Convention Center so that these company executives and chemical facilities could hear directly from impacted communities.
This year, Confronting CERAWeek brought together environmental activists and community members in the struggle for natural resources amidst an economic downturn. We appreciated reconnecting with partners and building foundational relationships with others.