12 Most Influential Climate Activists and Their Impact

Climate change is rising because of fossil fuels and other human activities. It explicitly affects frontline communities near natural resources. Climate activists encourage governments to address climate change to preserve the planet for future generations. 

Younger activists are more involved in climate activism, although most people worldwide demand government action. They practice environmental politics, civil disobedience, and other political action to make governments and corporations address climate change.

Here are 12 eco-warriors engaging in the civil rights movement, climate movement, and other forms of activism to prevent climate change. 

12 Climate Activists Protecting The Planet

In no particular order, here’s a list of influential individuals defending the planet from climate change:

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1. Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg is one of the most influential climate activists in the world. She was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 2003 and became interested in climate change when she was eight. She convinced her parents to become vegans and adopt lifestyle practices to reduce carbon emissions.

By 15, she organized the first School Strike for Climate outside the Swedish parliament. Thousands of young people worldwide joined Greta’s climate movement, Fridays for Future Strikes. Greta took a year’s break from school in 2019 and 2020 to focus on climate movement and activism. 

During this period, she gained popularity for her passionate and enlightening speeches. She is famously known for getting arrested during protests against environmental problems worldwide. Her famous speeches include her address at the United Nations Climate in September 2019, her speech at the European Parliament on April 16, 2019, and her address at the World Economic Forum on January 25, 2019.

Greta also has an organization dedicated to the climate movement. Established in 2019, the Greta Thunberg Foundation works globally to encourage the creation of a sustainable climate, a socially sustainable society, and a good environment. The foundation also aims to preserve wildlife, human rights, and animal rights. 

2. Fatou Jeng

Fatou Jeng is the face of an NGO led by young climate activists. She founded Clean Energy Gambia, an environmental organization focused on gender, climate change, conservation, and environmental movement. 

She is studying for a master’s in environment, development, and policy at the University of Sussex. Fatou is also the Policy Operations lead for Women and Gender in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Youth Constituency (YOUNGO). She was among the 30 young people selected to support the UN Youth Climate Summit 2019.

Fataou Jeng is also the author of several works on gender inequality, climate, and the environment. She has received many honors for her contribution to increasing environmental awareness. Gambia’s Youth Dialogue called her Youth of the Month in June 2019, and she also received the Emerging Young African Leaders Award in 2019. 

In 2020, she received a student leadership award from the president of Gambia. The African Wildlife Fund, WWF, and Africa Alliance of YMCAs listed her among the Top 100 Young African Conservations Leaders.

3. Leah Namugerwa

Leah Namugerwa is a 20-year-old Ugandan activist famous for championing a petition to enforce tree-planting campaigns and plastic bag bans. She celebrated her 15th birthday by planting 200 trees, an act that began the tradition of the Birthday Trees project. 

She gives out seedlings to people who want to plant trees on birthdays. Inspired by Greta Thunberg’s school strike, she started supporting school strikes in 2019. In 2020, she spoke at the World Urban Forum. Leah focuses on successfully implementing the Paris 21 Agreement and raising awareness of the global climate crisis, particularly in Uganda.

4. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

Dr. Ayana Johnson is a marine biologist, policy expert, and writer. She earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental science and public policy from Harvard University and a postgraduate degree from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. 

She is the co-founder of Urban Ocean Lab and the co-creator of How to Save a Planet, a climate solutions podcast. Ayana also invented a fish trap to reduce bycatch, which won the first Rare/National Geographic Solution Search.

Ayana's writing has been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Scientific American. She co-wrote a roadmap for including the ocean in climate policy, the Blue New Deal, and is currently writing a book titled What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures. 

Dr. Ayana is also the founder and CEO of Ocean Collectiv, a consulting firm for conservation solutions. She’s a member of Patagoni’s and GreenWave’s boards of directors, the Environmental Voter Project, and the Scientific American advisory boards. She’s also on the steering committee for the Ocean Justice Forum.

Her awards and recognitions include an appointment to the Secretary of State’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board and the Schneider Award for climate communication. Dr. Ayana’s expertise on climate policy has been beneficial and contributed tremendously to climate justice. 

5. Katherine Hayhoe

Katherin Hayhoe is an expert on climate science, climate impacts, communication, and leadership. As the chief scientist, she coordinates The Nature Conservacy's scientific efforts. Her research focuses on understanding the effects of climate change on the planet and its people. 

With a bachelor's degree in Physics from the University of Toronto and graduate and postgraduate degrees in Atmospheric Science from the University of Illinois, her research areas include greenhouse gas emissions, science communication, and the development and application of high-resolution climate projections for assessing regional to local-scale impacts of climate change on the natural world and human systems.

She has four honorary doctorates and the title of U.N. Champion of the Earth. She’s also the Horn Distinguished Professor and Endowed Professor of Public Policy and Public Law at Texas Tech University. Katherine Hayhoe was the lead author of the Second, Third, and Fourth U.S. National Climate Assessments. 

Her work produced over 125 peer-reviewed papers, abstracts, and other publications, including Downscaling Techniques for High-resolution Climate Projections: From Global Change To Local Impacts.  

Katherine has appeared on lists like Fortune 50 World Leaders, Foreign Policy’s 100 Global Thinkers, and Working Mother’s 50 Influential Moms. She is an Honourary Fellow of the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, an Oxfam Sister of the Planet, and the World Evangelical Alliance’s Climate Ambassador.

6. Vanessa Nakate

Vanessa Nakate is a climate justice activist who appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in 2021. Her advocacy started in 2019 with a protest on Kampala Streets, Uganda. She held these protests for weeks, becoming a face of the global young people addressing climate change just like her inspiration, Greta Thunberg.  

She has a Business Administration in Marketing degree from Makerere University Business School. Vanessa led the campaign to save Congo’s rainforest from deforestation. 

She was also one of the 20 climate activists who wrote a letter to the participants of the World Economic Forum in Davos to stop the subsidization of fossil fuels.

She uses her platform to advocate for climate justice, especially for people affected by global warming and climate change. She is the founder of the Rise Up Movement, an environmental movement that spotlights the voices of African climate activists. It is also a project to install renewable energy sources like solar power in Ugandan schools.

7. Hoesung Lee

Hoesung Lee is an Endowed Chair Professor at the Korea University Graduate School of Energy and Environment. He is also the Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Asian Development Bank President’s Advisory Board on Climate Change and Sustainable Development.

His research focuses on the economics of climate change, energy, and sustainable development. He received his bachelor's degree from Seoul National University and a postgraduate degree in economics from Rutgers University, USA. Lee addressed climate change on several international and national committees.

He was the founding president of the Korea Energy Economics Institute. The institute is a government agency for national energy policy development. Lee served in many economic development roles like: 

• Senior fellow at the Korea Development Institute and economist at Exxon Company USA,
• Distinguished Research Fellow at the Korea Environment Institute,
• President of the International Association for Energy Economics, president of the Korea Resources Economics Association,
• member of the International Advisory Board of the Battelle-Pacific Northwest National Lab, USA
• the Board of Directors of Hyundai Corporation and the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Japan, 
• Council member of the Global Green Growth Institute.

8. Autumn Peltier

Autumn Peltier is a young climate activist from Ojibwe. She spent the early years of her life advocating for clean water for the indigenous communities in Canada. Her great-aunt Josephine Mandamin, also known as Grandmother Water Walker, inspired her to become a climate activist.

Her aunt led a series of walks around the Great Lakes from 2003 to 2017, bringing attention to the environmental issues responsible for the polluted waters of the Great Lakes and Native Reserves. 

Autumn was 12 years old and became one of the influential youth climate activists because of her interaction with Justin Trudeau, the former Prime Minister of Canada. The assembly of First Nations chose Autumn Peltier to present Trudeau with a ceremonial copper water bowl.

She told Trudeau she was unhappy with his recent approval of two fossil fuel pipelines because they contribute to water pollution. Her interaction was broadcast around the world, causing an influx of invitations. She traveled to various countries upon request, speaking about the importance of clean water. 

In 2018, she spoke in front of the UN General Assembly. When her aunt died in 2019, Peltier became the Anishinabek Nation’s chief water commissioner. In recognition of her environmental protection advocacy, she received nominations for the International Children’s Peace Prize in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2022.

9. Nalleli Cobo

Nalleli Cobo is an environmental activist who led grassroots campaigns to permanently end the toxic oil well in her community. Her climate activism started when she was nine years old. For years, she experienced headaches, heart palpitations, and nose bleeds caused by the pollution in her community. 

She attended meetings and protests with her mother. When she was 9, she gave her first speech on the ecological crisis. Her oratory skills led to her becoming the lead spokesperson for banning oil drilling in Los Angeles. 

Nalleli also co-founded People Not Pozos and South Central Youth Leadership Coalition. The former is an organization that aims to secure a safe and healthy neighborhood, while the latter focuses on environmental racism in the community. She successfully led the movement by giving the executives of the drilling site near her home criminal charges for ecological health and safety violations.

10. Varshini Prakash

Varshini Prakash is the co-founder and executive director of the Sunrise Movement. Sunrise is a climate movement with heavy youth involvement that combats the climate crisis and carbon emissions from Big Oil corporations. She led a campaign involving thousands of school students and influenced the University of Massachusetts to stop investing in fossil fuels. 

11. Luisa Neubauer

She is often referred to as the German Greta Thunberg. Luisa was one of Germany’s Fridays For Future climate strike program organizers. She advocates for environmental policy and hopes to surpass the sustainable development goals in the Paris Agreement. 

She also demanded the University of Gottingen take action to stop investing in fossil fuel industries. The 26-year-old climate activist participated in 11 global strikes against global climate change.

12. Elizabeth Wathuti

Elizabeth is a Kenyan environmental activist and the founder of the Green Generation Initiative. The Initiative helps generate public interest in the climate crisis and encourages youth activists to take climate action. Elizabeth planted over 30,000 trees in Kenya and was the African Green Person of the Year in 2019.

Conclusion   

Countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels are the truly dangerous radicals on the planet. Burning fossil fuels like coal to facilitate human activity, such as producing heat, causes a series of ecological crises worldwide. 

Climate activists worldwide demand action to protect us from the effects of climate change. Let us support them to the best of our capacity. Various roles fit across multiple climate groups. Climate action begins with you and me.