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Dr. Mithika Mwenda, the Executive Director of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) has been named among the 100 most influential people in climate advocacy for the 2022-2023 period.
In this installment, Spiked Online Media focuses on the Top 20 as well as International Non-Governmental Organisations.
The climate crisis is here. Emissions are still too high to avoid overshooting a 1.5C° temperature rise. The world now looks to COP27 in Egypt for the solutions, ideas, and agreements to propel ambitious climate action.
Organisations, groups, and individuals have been hard at work finding and implementing climate solutions. From green finance to indigenous land activism, this list celebrates the people making breakthroughs in the struggle against climate change.
Governments are at the forefront of climate action. That’s why this year our selection process aims to boost the profile of climate policymakers. This list also focuses on the underrepresented and unsung heroes of climate action, with voices from the Global South and grassroots campaigns.
If you want to learn more about how we made this list and decided who to include, you can take a look at our methodology.
Top 20
Kate Raworth (UNITED KINGDOM)
Known for: Doughnut economics
Kates Raworth is a heterodox economist working to transition economics —A field with much responsibility for climate breakdown— into a science capable of transitioning our societies to a sustainable future. Her scholarship is dedicated to finding a balance between vital human needs and planetary boundaries, known as Doughnut Economics. This work is vital to ensuring that climate change is combated in a way that is equitable and improves our lives. She was the founder of the Doughnut economics action lab, and is currently on the World Health Organisations’ council for ‘Economics for Health of All’.
Mia Mottley (BARBADOS)
Known for: Creating Global South Climate Partnerships
Mia Mottley came to the fore of climate policy following her explosive COP26 speech, where she called a 2C° world a “Death Sentence” for many in the global south. Since then, she has been building climate partnerships between developing nations, combining their efforts to push for greater action on climate change and the delivery of climate reparations. In 2021, she was awarded UNEP’s Champion of the Earth award for her work In Barbados and international advocacy.
Nemote Nequimo (WAORANI NATION, ECUADOR)
Known for: Protector of the Ecuadorian Amazon
Nemote is an immensely impactful activist and leader, having successfully sued to protect half a million acres of the Ecuadorian Amazon from oil drilling, protecting its ecological integrity and preventing these reserves being exploited and the forest felled. She is also an activie indigenous politician, ensuring the voice of the Waorani nation are heard and their stewardship of the Amazon is respected. In 2020, she was awarded UNEP’s “Champions of the Earth” award and also named in Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world.
Antonio Guterres (PORTUGAL)
Known for: Promoting international climate action
Guterres is an experienced politician who uses diplomatic power to organise international climate change cooperation. He was twice the Prime Minister of Portugal and served as president of the Socialist International. In his current role as Secretary-General of the United Nations, Guterres pushes world leaders towards ambitious climate action. In particular, he uses his platform to urge leaders to heed the demands of climate protestors, saying:
“Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels.”
Bill McKibben (USA)
Known for: Founding 350.org
Bill McKibben is the co-founder of 350.org, an international campaign working in 188 countries around the world to oppose new coal, oil, and gas projects in favour of clean energy solutions. It is the first global grassroots climate change movement, having held rallies in every country except North Korea. He is also a highly successful author and journalist: his 1989 book ‘The End of Nature’ is considered the first mainstream book on climate change and has been translated into 24 languages. He was the winner of the Gandhi Prize and has been described by the Boston Globe as “probably the nation’s leading environmentalist”—in fact, he has even had a new species of gnat named after him in his honour.
Anne Hidalgo (FRANCE)
Known for: City climate transitions
Anne Hidalgo has served as the mayor of Paris since 2014. Using the disruption from COVID-19, she turned many of the city’s most traffic-filled areas into cycle-friendly neighborhoods. She jointly hosted the Climate Summit for Local Leaders in December 2015 with Michael Bloomberg, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change, before being elected to the chairship of C40 Cities, an organisation bringing together the 90 leading global cities on the issue of climate change. CityLab said in 2018 that Paris under Hidalgo “could be a model for how cities can mitigate and plan for climate change”.
Anthony Nyong (CÔTE D’IVOIRE)
Known for: Climate-conscious development
Anthony Nyong is currently the director of Climate Change and Green Growth at the African Development Bank Group, where he leads its efforts to transition Africa to low-carbon and climate-resilient development. In his previous positions at the AfDB, Nyong led efforts to mainstream climate change policies throughout the AfDB’s development efforts and coordinated the New Deal on Energy for Africa.
Greta Thunberg (SWEDEN)
Known for: School strike for climate
Greta Thunberg is a 19-year-old climate activist from Sweden. In August 2018, she became known around the world for starting a schools strike for climate outside the Swedish parliament. She demanded that the government reduce carbon emissions in accordance with the Paris Agreement, and she protested by sitting outside parliament every day during school hours. Within months, she had addressed the UN Climate Change Conference and had spoken at the World Economic Forum at Davos. She inspired school students around the world: more than 20,000 students from 270 towns and cities have now taken part in similar strikes.
Fatih Birol (TURKEY)
Known for: Energy transitions in the developing nations
Fatih Birol has served as Executive Director of the International Energy Agency since September 2015, and has recently been re-elected for a second four-year term. The IEA is an intergovernmental organisation established in the OECD framework after the 1973 oil crisis. It aims to ensure reliable, affordable and clean energy for member countries and beyond. Under Birol’s leadership, the IEA has undertaken its first comprehensive modernisation program since its creation, opening itself to emerging countries like Brazil and India. Birol has spent over 20 years at the IEA and is the founder and chair of the IEA Energy Business Council, one of the world’s most active industry advisory groups in energy. Birol has been named by Forbes as one of the most influential people on the energy scene and recognised by the Financial Times in 2017 as Energy Personality of the Year. He is chairman of the World Economic Forum Energy Advisory Board and serves on the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on ‘Sustainable Energy for All’.
Jennifer Morgan (USA, GERMANY)
Known for: Leading climate campaigner
Jennifer Morgan is Germany’s first Special Representative for International Climate Policy. She was previously the executive director of Greenpeace International, one of the world’s leading environmental NGOs which campaigns on issues ranging from climate change to deforestation and nuclear power. Prior to joining Greenpeace, Morgan served as the global director of the Climate Programem at the World Resources Institute, Global Climate Change Director at Third Generation Environmentalism, and led the Global Climate Change Program of Worldwide Fund for Nature.
Katharine Hayhoe (USA)
Known for: Bridging climate science and communication
Katharine Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist and professor of political science at Texas Tech University. She specialises in the science of climate change and, together with her husband, wrote the book A Climate for Change: Global Warming Facts for Faith-Based Decisions, where she highlights the role of faith in shaping attitudes to global warming. She has co-authored numerous reports, including the 3rd National Climate Assessment of 2014, and featured as an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report. In recognition of her work, she received the Climate Communications award from the American Geophysical Union and was listed in Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2014.
Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko (ANGOLA)
Known for: Climate-proofing African agriculture
Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko is a leading African Agronomist and the current commissioner for rural economy and agriculture of the African Union Commission. She was previously the special adviser to the Minister of Agriculture and the ministry’s Ambassador for Climate Change. She is a high-profile speaker at international organisations, including African Development Bank and the World Trade Organisation.
Marina Silva (BRAZIL)
Known for: Forest and livelihood protector
Marina Silva is a Brazilian environmentalist and current spokeswoman for the Sustainability Party in Brazil. Born into a rubber-tapping community in the Amazon rainforest, she was a pioneer of “empates”. These peaceful protests by rubber tappers against deforestation and eviction from their communities saved vast expanses of rainforest and hundreds of families’ livelihoods. Despite having grown up illiterate, Silva made an impressive impact on the Brazilian political sphere —in 2018, she ran for president with an anti-corruption campaign and, while Minister of Environment, managed to reduce deforestation by nearly 60% and establish the Amazon Fund. She is the winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize for South & Central America and was declared a Champion of the Earth by the United Nations Environment Program.
Patricia Espinosa
Known for: International cooperation on climate change
Patricia Espinosa is a Mexican politician and diplomat and former executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC secretariat is tasked with supporting the global response to the threat of climate change. It aims to gain consensus on the objective of stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations to prevent dangerous interference with the climate system. It does this through facilitating intergovernmental negotiations, providing technical expertise and assistance, and informing the public of progress on climate action. Espinosa has formerly been Mexico’s secretary of foreign affairs and its ambassador to Austria, Germany, Slovenia, and Slovakia.
Michael Mann (USA)
Known for: Communicating climate change to policymakers
Michael Mann is a distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State University, where he is also director of the Penn State Earth System Science Centre. His contributions to the scientific understanding of climate change have been influential in environmental policy; he was a lead author of the Observed Climate Variability and Change chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Scientific Assessment Report of 2001. He is also the author of several books on climate change and co-founder of the science website RealClimate.org. The most recent of his many awards for his impact is the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement of 2019.
Saleemul Huq (BANGLADESH)
Known for: Climate mitigation and adaptation in the global south
Saleemul Huq is a Bangladeshi scientist who is the founding director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development and a senior fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development. Huq has been a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He has published numerous reports and articles in the space, and was awarded the Burtoni Award, which recognises outstanding contributions to the science of adaptation to climate change, for his work.
Mpho Parks Tau (SOUTH AFRICA)
Known for: Equitable urban climate transitions.
Mpho is an expert in ensuring development, particularly in urban settings, conforms to the needs of climate adaptation whilst ensuring equity and justice. He is a member of the Coalition for Urban Transitions, and was co-chair of the C40 Cities Steering Committee, a governing body helping cities act in concert to combat climate change. He was previously instrumental in the sustainable urban regeneration of Johannesburg, and now is working towards economic climate transition in Gauteng province, South Africa.
Xie Zhenhua (CHINA)
Known for: Coordinating international carbon reduction
Xie Zhenhua is the current special representative on climate change for China. In this role, he has been instrumental in a series of influential climate change negotiations: he coordinated an agreement between China and the US on reducing carbon emissions and collected political support for the adoption of the Paris Agreement. In his previous role as Minister of Environmental Protection, he was a strong advocate for clean air, resource conservation and sustainable development. His influential role in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has boosted China’s influence on international climate change agreements.
David Attenborough (UNITED KINGDOM)
Known for: Nature communications
David Attenborough is a renowned English broadcaster, natural historian and environmental advocate. His programs highlight the impact of human society on the natural world. His documentary series Blue Planet II prompted a surge in public interest in plastic recycling and was considered a catalyst for the Environmental Audit Committee’s creation of ‘Plastic bottles: Turning back the Plastic Tide,’ a report on plastic litter. He has been hugely influential in a range of campaigns such as the World Wildlife Fund’s push to create a protected area in Borneo’s rainforest. In May 2015, he discussed measures to protect the environment with President Barack Obama, and, in 2018, he addressed the UN Climate Change Summit.
Hoesung Lee (SOUTH KOREA)
Known for: Chairing the IPCC
Hoesung Lee has been chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since October 2015. He is also an endowed chair professor at the Korea University Graduate School of Energy and Environment. His research covers economics relating to climate change, energy and sustainable development. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Korean Academy of Environmental Sciences, council member of the Global Green Growth Institute, and a member of the Asian Development Bank President’s Advisory Board on Climate Change and Sustainable Development.
International and Non-Governmental Organisations
Dickens Kamugisha
Known for: Oil development activist and sustainable community energy leader
As CEO of AFIEGO, Dickens has been an important protector of vulnerable communities and environments against fossil fuel developments, in particular the EACOP pipeline which threatens both climate and the communities in its path. He also works directly with communities across Uganda to transition their energy usage away from wood and towards cleaner, more sustainable sources.
Ayan Mahmoud (DJIBOUTI)
Known for: Climate and drought resilience planner
As Coordinator for IDDRSI, Ayan has fostered cross-state cooperation in the Horn of Africa to combat the interlocking climate and ecological crises that are causing regional drought and famine. She was also instrumental in studying the impact of climate change on pastoralists in the Horn of Africa.
Jon Creyts (USA)
Known for: Market-based climate solutions
Jon has grown RMI tenfold in his time with the company, and his work on market-based solutions to climate change and energy transition has been influential in governments, businesses, and NGOs all over the world.
Agnes Kalibata (RWANDA)
Known for: African agricultural resilience
Agnes Kalibata is a Rwandan agricultural scientist and policymaker. She is president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, an organisation working to improve agricultural products and support local farm owners. During her time as Rwanda’s minister of agriculture and animal resources between 2008 and 2014, the nation’s budget for the agricultural sector tripled and it became the first country to sign an agreement under the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme.
Amal-Lee Amin (UNITED KINGDOM)
Chief of Climate Change Division, Inter-American Development Bank, Amal-Lee Amin is the Chief of the Climate Change Division at the Inter-American Development Bank. She played a key role in designing and implementing their Climate Investment Funds. Previously, she was influential in the design of a new Green Investment Bank for the UK government and heading up negotiations at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the World Summit on Sustainable Development of 2002.
Barbara Buchner (AUSTRIA)
Known for: Climate finance
Barbara Buchner is an Austrian economist and the executive director of the Climate Finance program at Climate Policy Initiative. She advises leaders on climate, energy, and land investments around the world. She is also the director of the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance, which develops cutting-edge finance tools to combat challenges in sustainable investments, and the founder of the San Giorgio Group, which unites influential green financial institutions in collaboration with the World Bank Group. In 2014, she was listed in the Top 20 Most Influential Women in Climate Change by the International Council for Science.
Catherine Abreu (CANADA)
Known for: Building climate partnerships across Canada
Catherine Abreu is one of Canada’s most influential climate campaigners. She is the Executive Director of Climate Change Action Network Canada, a coalition of over 100 organisations across the country that advocates for policies and solutions to tackle climate change. It is the only movement to unite communities affected by climate change with key organisations in the field. Previously, she was head of the energy and climate programs at the Ecology Action Centre, a Canadian environmental advocacy organisation, and co-ordinator of the Atlantic Canada Sustainable Energy Coalition, a network of groups campaigning for sustainable energy solutions. She has demonstrated her commitment to collaboration in her work as a community organiser, having founded and supported numerous coalitions, and is also an influential public speaker on environmental topics.
Christiana Figueres (COSTA RICA)
Christiana Figueres was executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 2010-2016. She took over the international climate change negotiations in 2009 following the failed Copenhagen Conference, and shepherded them through six annual conferences, culminating in the 2015 Paris Summit, which resulted in a historic accord on climate change. Mission 2020 seeks to secure rapid action on greenhouse gas emissions, in order to protect the most at-risk nations and people from the worst effects of climate change.
Connie Hedegaard (DENMARK)
Known for: Pushing European climate action
Connie Hedegaard is a Danish former politician and journalist and currently serves as a chair and board member on several foundations that support green initiatives. From 2010 to 2014 she represented the EU in international climate negotiations as the European Commissioner for Climate Action. She was the youngest person elected to the Danish National Parliament in 1984. She was appointed Minister of Environment to Denmark from 2004 to 2009 and was responsible for leading the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in 2009. She is currently a member of the board of the European Climate foundation.
Debra Roberts (SOUTH AFRICA)
Debra Roberts is the director and founder of the Environmental Planning and Climate Protection Department of eThekwini Municipality in South Africa, where she is responsible for directing its Climate Protection Program. She was recently awarded the AfriCAN Climate Research Award for pioneering projects that have made Durban a world leader in climate change adaptation. For instance, she was instrumental in the Durban Adaptation Charter for Local Governments, a partnership deal to advance local government strategies against climate change, which was signed by more than 100 cities around the world in 2011.
Elizabeth Yeampierre (Executive Director, UPROSE)
Elizabeth Yeampierre is a lawyer and environmental activist from New York. She is the co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance, an alliance of communities working towards sustainable development, and the executive director of UPROSE, Brooklyn’s oldest Latino community-based organisation. As the first Latina chair of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, she was influential in the state’s first Brownfield legislation and Solid Waste Management Plan. She was selected as the opening speaker at the Obama Administration’s first White House Forum on Environmental Justice.
Hakima El Haité (MOROCCO)
Hakima El Haité is a Moroccan politician, climate scientist, and entrepreneur. She has been Morocco’s environment minister, vice president of COP 21, and Special Envoy and UN High-Level Champion of COP 22, which she helped bring to Morocco. Prior to serving as environment minister, she founded EAU GLOBE, the first environmental engineering firm in Africa and the Middle East. She is currently president of Liberal International, the world federation of liberal and progressive democratic political parties. She has won numerous awards for her commitment to climate change, including the French Legion of Honour.
Helen Mountford (AUSTRALIA)
Helen Mountford is the vice president for climate and economics at the World Resources Institute (WRI) where her team helps policymakers, businesses, and civil society to identify and advance the structural shifts needed to successfully address climate change. She is program director of the New Climate Economy (NCE) project which provides independent and authoritative evidence on the relationship between actions that can strengthen.
Jacqueline Patterson (USA)
Jacqueline Patterson is an American gender, racial, social, and environmental activist. She is the director of the Environmental and Climate Justice Program at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which seeks to highlight the disproportionate impact of climate change on communities of colour and those with low income. She currently serves on the Steering Committee of the Interfaith Moral Action on Climate Change and at the US Climate Action Network.
James Thornton (USA)
James Thornton is an environmental lawyer and social entrepreneur who since 2007 has served as the founding CEO of ClientEarth, Europe’s first public interest environmental law organisation. The New Statesman magazine in the UK has named him as one of 10 people who could change the world, and The Financial Times gave him a Special Achievement accolade at their 2016 innovative lawyers awards. Previously, as a founder of the Citizens’ Enforcement Project at NRDC in New York, he fought corporations in 80 federal lawsuits aimed at enforcing the Clean Water Act.
Jos Delbeke (BELGIUM)
Jos Delbeke is Senior Adviser at the European Political Strategy Centre at the European Commission, and a part-time economics professor at the European University Institute in Florence and the KU Leuven in Belgium. He has played a key role in formulating EU legislation, including the climate targets for 2020 and 2030. He has also been influential in developing Europe’s International Climate Change strategy and previously served as the European Commission’s chief negotiator at the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties.
Laura Tuck (USA)
Laura Tuck has been the World Bank’s vice president for sustainable development since 2015. She oversees the practices and thematic groups on agriculture; climate change; environment and natural resources; social, urban, rural, resilience; and water. Together, these help countries tackle their most complex challenges in the area of sustainable development.
Laurence Tubiana (FRANCE)
Laurence Tubiana is CEO of the European Climate Foundation (ECF), and also serves as chair of the board of governors at the French Development Agency (AFD), as well as holding a professorship at Sciences Po, Paris. Before joining the ECF, Laurence held France’s Climate Change Ambassadorship and served as Special Representative for COP21, roles in which she became a key driver behind the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement. Following COP21, she was appointed High-Level Champion for Climate Action by the UN. In 2018, President Emmanuel Macron appointed her to France’s High Council on Climate Change.
Mahama Kappiah (GHANA)
Mahama Kappiah is the Executive Director of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency — an organisation with the aim of improving access to affordable and clean energy in West Africa. He was instrumental in the establishment of the entre and, as director, has turned it into an internationally recognised establishment. He is the creator of the West African Power Pool and the ECOWAS Regional Electricity Regulation Authority, and the recipient of the 2017 African Energy Leader Award and the 2017 Green Future Leadership Award.
Maria Neira (SPAIN)
Maria Neira is the director of the Department of Public Health and Environment at the World Health Organization. She works to promote a healthier environment and influence public policy across all sectors to combat health threats. She was awarded the Médaille de l’Ordre national du Mérite by the Government of France.
Michael Brune (USA)
Michael Brune is the executive director of the Sierra Club, an influential US grassroots organisation that promotes policies to protect the environment. While working at the Rainforest Action Network, he successfully led a campaign to stop Home Depot stores from trading wood from old-growth forests. He is the author of Coming Clean — Breaking America’s Addiction to Oil and Coal.
Miguel Arias Cañete (SPAIN)
Miguel Arias Cañete was the European Commissioner for climate action and energy. In this role, he was responsible for: diversifying energy sources, proposing new EU laws to implement the 2030 climate framework; making the EU the world leader in renewable energy and strengthening the Emissions Trading System, the EU’s flagship climate policy. He is Spain’s former minister of agriculture and fisheries and a former member of the European Parliament (MEP). He represents the EU at international climate negotiations, including the 2014 UN Climate Change Conference in Lima and COP 21 in Paris for the signature of the Paris Agreement.
Mithika Mwenda (KENYA)
Naoko Ishii (JAPAN)
Rachel Kyte (USA)
Rachel Kyte is the Chief Executive Officer of Sustainable Energy for All, an organisation that helps improve energy efficiency and increase the use of renewable energy. She also uses her energy expertise as a Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All and Co-Chair of UN-Energy. In 2016 she received the Women and the Green Economy Leadership Award for her work in climate action. She previously worked at the World Bank from 2011 to 2015 as vice president and head of the network of sustainable development and group vice president and special envoy on climate change.
Rodolfo Lacy (MEXICO)
Rodolfo Lacy is an environmental engineer and Mexican civil servant. In 2018, he was appointed Director of the Environment Directorate of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. He was influential in bringing renewable energy to Mexico during his post as Vice Minister of Environmental Policy and Planning from 2012 to 2018.