Serge Dedina

Serge Dedina is the Mayor of Imperial Beach, California, his hometown where he has lived since 1971, located on the U.S-Mexico border. Under Mayor Dedina’s leadership Imperial Beach was the first city in the world to carry out a climate lawsuit against fossil fuel companies for causing sea level rise. Imperial Beach also developed an innovative partnership with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to develop and adopt an early warning system for coastal flooding. Mayor Dedina has also been a leader in efforts to halt the tsunami of toxic pollution along the U.S.-Mexico border, an effort that was featured on 60 Minutes in 2020, and resulted in a lawsuit against the federal government for violations of the Clean Water Act. That effort led to the allocation of $300 million in EPA funding under the USMCA that is destined for transboundary sewage diversion infrastructure. Mayor Dedina also led the effort to have Imperial Beach become a founding member of San Diego Community Power, a community choice aggregation program. As the co-founder and Executive Director of WILDCOAST/COSTASALVAJE an international conservation team, Serge is pioneering blue carbon coastal salt marsh and mangrove forest natural climate solutions in California and Mexico. In recognition of his conservation achievements, Serge received the San Diego Zoological Society’s Conservation Medal, the Peter Benchley “Hero of the Sea” award and was a UC-San Diego John Muir Fellow. The author of three books on coastal issues in the Californias, including Saving the Gray Whale, Serge received a B.A. in Political Science from UC-San Diego, a M.S. in Geography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Texas at Austin. An avid surfer, Serge is a proud former City of Imperial Beach and State of California Ocean Lifeguard and still enjoys competing in state and national lifeguard competitions.