Andrea Vidaurre sees her work as 'personal' as she spearheads clean air policies
Goldman Environmental Prize winner Andrea Vidaurre said her award-winning efforts to improve air quality in California are very much tied to her own experiences.
Goldman Environmental Prize winner Andrea Vidaurre said her award-winning efforts to improve air quality in California are very much tied to her own experiences.
Vidaurre, who is Peruvian American, was born and raised in California’s Inland Empire, which is east of Los Angeles and has some of the country’s worst air quality.
Vidaurre, 29, has family members and friends who work in the region’s sprawling freight industry. “It is really personal to me because they are the front lines of all of this,” she said. “If you live anywhere in the region, you’re impacted by air quality.”
Vidaurre was one of six people around the globe — one for each inhabited continent — who were awarded what’s been referred to as the “Green Nobel” earlier this year. Vidaurre’s policy and community work was instrumental in the passage of new regulations in California, including the first emission rule for trains and a path to zero emissions for freight truck sales by 2036.
Other states have also adopted California’s regulations, meaning that Vidaurre’s work has had a national impact.
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