COP21 was a watershed moment as the UN climate body came of age. Here are six entrepreneurs, activists and lawmakers that could take it into its next phase
Mohamed Adow, Larissa Waters, Elon Musk, Jack Ma, Kathy Jentil-Kijiner, Catherine McKenna (credit: IISD, Larissa Waters, Flickr, UN)
By Alex Pashley
The environmental movement has its stalwarts who guided it through Kyoto, Copenhagen and ultimately Paris.
Al Gore, Nicholas Stern and Mary Robinson were then. This is now. As the UN process turned 21, who are the next cohort of climate leaders?
(credit: Twitter)
Mohamed Adow, a Kenyan pastoralist turned Christian Aid chief climate adviser is a prominent civil society voice in UN-led negotiations fighting to get a good deal for the poor. Wired in with NGOs and governments from the Global South as well as the North, the thirty-something holds a rare insight into bridging the divide that has skewered talks in the past. Starting his career in development work in northern Kenya, Adow partnered with the UK-based charity to work on managing risk from disasters and drought in East Africa, before moving to London. @mohadow
(credit: Twitter)
Larissa Waters is an Australian senator and deputy leader of the Greens. In the country’s polarised political scene, she holds the Liberal party’s feet to the fire on renewable energy targets, coal mine expansion and carbon commitments. The Queensland lawmaker, 38, caused uproar earlier this year after probing if then-leader and Catholic Tony Abbott would take heed of Pope Francis’ moral call to act on human-induced climate change. @larissawaters
(Flickr/ JD Lasica)
Elon Musk, the visionary behind Space X, PayPal and Tesla Motors, champions the power of technology in tackling the climate crisis. During COP21 he gave a presentation on how land the size of Utah could power the entire US with solar energy. His response to Volkswagen’s emissions cheating scandal? Don’t spend money fixing the cars, put the money towards zero-emission vehicles. The rockstar entrepreneur grabs headlines and make him a slick ambassador for the low-carbon transition. @elonmusk
Flickr/ UNFCCC)
Jack Ma, 51, is China’s biggest e-commerce mogul and a high-profile advocate for environmental protection. The founder of Alibaba, China’s answer to Amazon, lent his name to the ‘Breakthrough Energy Coalition’, an initiative to boost investment in clean energy research along with Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Alibaba reportedly donates 0.3% of its revenues to funding innovative solutions to tackle climate change. Ma sits on the board of The Nature Conservancy and serves as a business inspiration in the world’s clean energy superpower.
(credit: Twitter)
Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner is a poet from the Marshall Islands who stunned the UN general assembly in 2014 with a recital about her daughter and the sea. Rising tides as the planet overheats would “crunch” the island’s “shattered bones”, the 27-year-old islander said. Delegates from the string of low-lying coral atolls in the Pacific Ocean are seen as the moral conscience of climate talks. But Jetnil-Kijiner defies tokenism with her raw and challenging work. She travelled to the French capital to “fight for my home“, she told Climate Home last month. @kathykijiner
(credit: Twitter)
Catherine McKenna is Canada’s new environment and climate change minister. Seeking to overhaul the country’s image after it turned laggard under the previous Harper government, she signed it up to a 1.5C temperature goal, was part of the new Trudeau’s leadership bridge-building with provincial leaders, and embraced First Nations groups. A legal advisor on a UN peacekeeping missions in East Timor, the Ontario lawmaker, 44, is a Twitter fanatic and selfie aficionado. @cathmckenna