Finding friendship and purpose in a common climate enemy: Ojas Sanghi leads the way

• Ojas Sanghi started his climate activism in high school joining the Arizona Youth Climate Coalition, and is now one of its leaders.
• Sanghi helped persuade the Tucson Unified School District board to adopt one of the nation’s most comprehensive climate action resolutions.
• Sanghi says he tries to balance his activism with social activities, a necessity if he’s going to continue his work.

This is part of a monthly series highlighting Arizona’s climate leaders and answering readers’ climate-related questions. The stories, which appear in print and online the first Sunday of the month, aim to help to connect and inspire Arizonans who care about protecting a livable climate and may be struggling to find hope in that effort lately. You can nominate an Arizona climate leader for a story or ask a question by filling out the form at https://forms.gle/QCCxBPSHGy1bUJQ99.

One of Tucson’s youngest climate stars doesn’t really want to be a star.

Yet, almost without trying, he’s made national waves in helping to set policies and chart new directions to preserve a livable environment for his and future generations, all before being legally allowed to drink. He’s just really interested in the work — and also motivated by seeing no real alternative.

“I think maybe in second or third grade, I was taught about climate change,” said Ojas Sanghi, 20, who will be a senior at the University of Arizona in the fall. “As a kid I just thought, ‘Oh, we have a problem and there are people in power, why are they not just fixing it if we know we can do it?’ And then I grew up and learned about politics.”

Seeing political will as the obstacle, Sanghi first tried to get involved in climate action in that realm, applying for a summer position with the Tucson mayor’s office. But when that didn’t pan out, he found his own entry into the scene.

“I remember thinking when I didn’t get the internship that I didn’t really care, I was still going to do climate stuff and still going to try to make climate policy and push these decision makers to act on what is existential for my life.”

And push them he did. After searching for opportunities open to high school students, he joined the Arizona Youth Climate Coalition, which had formed as a branch of the National Youth Climate Strike movement a few years before. As he entered college, he became the group’s co-lead.

In that role, Sanghi became the architect of the Tucson Unified School District’s adoption of the nation’s most comprehensive climate action resolution that will help shift energy use to renewable sources, among other advances, leading the way on schools addressing rising global temperatures from one of the United States’ hottest cities.

Alongside his Arizona Youth Climate Coalition friends, who have all been forced together into crisis management mode around this challenge their generation did little to create, he designed these goals over 16 months and persuaded the adult board members to accept them last fall, though they still wavered in committing to fund it.

A comprehensive plan: Tucson school district approves youth-led climate action resolution

That step came in May, when the school board put its money where its votes were by allocating $250,000 toward making the resolution a reality over the next few years. Helping to secure a more sustainable future, the students argued, will be just as beneficial to their generation as their education. And the savings in reducing extreme weather damage, health care costs, crop failure, water insecurity and more will pay dividends all their lives.

Acting simultaneously as researcher, author, lobbyist, web designer and media coordinator, Sanghi sent out a news release and quotes about the funding decision. He’s uncomfortable centering himself in these moments, but he recognizes movements need a leader for people to follow, and that is more important than humility in dire times.

Still, Sanghi is quick to point out that everything he has accomplished has been a collaboration between students, parents, teachers, officials and more, in addition to being a product of the solidarity he has found among friends worried about risks set in motion long before their time. He stays busy, but prioritizes a healthy work-life balance and values taking time for social recharge. That’s how he’ll be able to push for change over an entire climate career.

“Yeah, my life’s work is focused on climate and there are people dying right now and I’m doing this work for a very important reason,” the college student said. “But I can still pause and take care of myself and hang out with my friends, and I should be able to do that without guilt.”

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He clearly hasn’t been resting and socializing enough to warrant guilt. In between presenting the Arizona Youth Climate Coalition’s climate resolution to the TUSD in October and securing funding for its consultant in May, Sanghi accepted a prestigious Truman Scholarship as well as a summer research internship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He left for Boston a few weeks ago, where he will work with Professor Priya Donti, who co-founded and chairs Climate Change AI, a global nonprofit leveraging machine learning for climate solutions.

As a computer science major, Sanghi is excited to continue merging his interests in coding and climate. But he’s not blind to the ways artificial intelligence has, so far, often brought more environmental problems than solutions. He acknowledged its energy demands have prompted utility companies to build more methane gas facilities and keep uneconomical, climate-warming coal plants running to supply data centers with electricity in the manner to which society has become accustomed and is structured to permit. And he’s confident AI can still light a better way.

His thinking about how to meet rising electricity demand with renewable sources like solar energy — which requires more nuanced management due to diurnal cycles than simply firing up a gas plant — is more sophisticated than that of high-paid utility executives The Arizona Republic has interviewed about this issue.

“The grid right now is essentially controlled by people flipping switches, and we don’t want to do that manually. We’re going to need some sort of automation,” Sanghi said. “We need new solutions, not only because of climate change but because of load growth. (Utilities) know their current model isn’t sustainable.”

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Sanghi is inspired to do this work not only to carve out a better climate future, but because of the way he viewed the roots of American greatness as a child growing up in India. After being born in Florida and before returning to the U.S., to Tucson in 2018, he spent time during elementary and middle school with his family in Delhi. That city is so polluted that when he first saw photographs of bright blue skies and stunning starry nights over the Grand Canyon, for example, he didn’t believe such landscapes could be real.

This reality is only possible in a country that regulates for air quality and ecosystem health, he now realizes. And he’s intent on helping safeguard what he and many other Arizonans view as this major factor in what makes America great.

“As I started learning about the history of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, I remember thinking that so many people in America have no idea how bad it can get,” Sanghi said. “They’ve never seen a counterfactual of what it can look like if we don’t have these nameless federal employees doing the work day in and day out enforcing these regulations. I think, unfortunately, with the current backsliding (of funding and policies under President Donald Trump), we are going to see a degradation of this environment that we’ve worked really hard to get.”

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Sanghi will continue leading the way on protecting America’s pristine stars and skies. But he knows he can’t do it alone. He ended the interview by again expressing appreciation for his friends in this fight, both current and future. He wants to make sure everyone feels invited, and that no one gets dissuaded by thinking this work is only for superstars.

He feels so strongly about this that he wanted you all to have his personal email: Ojas.sanghi@gmail.com.

“I used to read so many profiles and success stories of people and I was like, ‘How did they do that? How can I do that?’ I want people to know that anyone can make a difference. Please reach out and talk to me, I want to help other people do that too.”

Joan Meiners is the climate news and storytelling reporter at The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. Her award-winning work has also appeared in Discover Magazine, National Geographic, ProPublica and the Washington Post Magazine. Before becoming a journalist, she completed a doctorate in ecology with a focus on native bees. Follow Joan on Twitter at @beecycles, on Bluesky @joanmeiners.bsky.social or email her at joan.meiners@arizonarepublic.com.