Climate Justice Campaigns (2023-)

Testing indoor air quality with County Councilmembers in 2024.

Since 2023, AIM has been organizing for clean air, safe homes, and a livable climate through our campaigns to transition apartments from dirty methane gas to clean electric energy.

How We Started

Many homes in our county and state still rely on outdated gas infrastructure that endangers residents’ health and safety. After a tragic gas explosion at Flower Branch Apartments in 2016 which killed seven residents and displaced dozens, AIM leaders began listening deeply to tenants and neighbors in the area. In the years that followed, a new effort emerged to better understand and address the risks families face in their homes.

AIM’s NO₂ Testing Team

A team of tenant leaders formed AIM’s NO₂ (nitrogen dioxide) testing team, going door to door in their own apartment complexes to test the air quality while families cooked on gas stoves.  In English, Spanish and French, the team started conversations with neighbors about what it means to breathe clean air, connecting climate with tangible impacts in our own homes. 

What they found was alarming: in many homes, levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO₂)—a toxic gas released by burning fossil fuels—spiked to dangerous levels in just 20 minutes of cooking. Together with the “Beyond Gas” coalition—including Interfaith Power & Light, the Sierra Club, and Washington Interfaith Network—AIM published a report finding that over 50% of homes we tested in Maryland had unhealthy levels of NO₂ gas.

Holding up cards representing high NO2 levels measured in people’s homes at our “Healthy Homes” action in December 2023. Photo credit: David Choy

Climate Victories

AIM’s tenant leaders didn’t stop at testing. Alongside AIM’s broader base of leaders, they educated and organized their neighbors and brought their findings directly to decision-makers. AIM, with our sister organizations in the Maryland Just Power Alliance and allies, brought 700 people together in two major actions and brought 200 people to Annapolis to meet with our state legislators.

 Together, we helped pass:

  • The EmPOWER Act (2024), directing $350 million per year toward energy-efficiency upgrades, prioritizing apartment complexes;

These victories will help give families who live in apartments the freedom to breathe clean air in their homes, in Montgomery County and across the state.

The AIM climate team at the Maryland Public Service Commission in September 2025.

Campaign for Clean Air at Northwest Park Apartments

This year, AIM’s NO₂ team and climate team have taken on a campaign for clean air at Northwest Park Apartments in collaboration with Kay Management, Interfaith Power and Light, and the Maryland Energy Administration. If the proposal from Washington Gas is selected, Northwest Park will benefit from networked geothermal energy—a clean alternative to methane gas.

AIM’s team of leaders from Northwest Park and the climate team took their advocacy to the PSC (Public Service Commission) in September, where they testified in support of the project and to ensure that it will be cost-effective and meet residents’ needs. PSC members remarked how rare it was to see everyday people showing up to their hearings, and especially to hear our leaders testify in Spanish and French.

Read press coverage of our campaign here: The future of natural gas could be rewritten in Silver Spring

We are continuing this campaign in 2026 and are determined to keep fighting for energy upgrades that benefit residents’ health and our climate.