Graphic Courtesy of Safia Savid ‘24
By Helen Gloege ’23
Staff Writer
Mitzi Jonelle Tan is a 24-year-old climate justice activist based in Metro Manila, Philippines. According to her biography on Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines, Tan has long held an interest in climate action. “At the age of nine, she would go up to strangers and tell them about greenhouse gases and global warming,” the biography reads. Later in 2017, when meeting with Lumad Indigenous leaders in her country, “she decided to fully commit her life to activism,” as they made her realize “collective action and system change is what we need for a just and green society,” the biography outlines.
According to Climate One, Tan’s activism involves organizations such as YACAP, Fridays for Future of the Philippines, FFF International and FFF Most Affected People and Areas. Tan’s work expands outside of the Philippines, as she has recently been protesting Standard Chartered Bank in London, England, according to her interview with Democracy Now. Tan is focused on Standard Chartered Bank because the bank “has the largest investments in fossil fuel companies in the Philippines,” she explained. This led to greater use of fossil fuels whose emissions caused increasingly violent typhoons.
In addition to on-the-ground activism, Tan writes opinion pieces in a variety of different news sources, including Teen Vogue, Vice and Voices of Youth. In collaboration with other activists, Tan writes and publishes letters directed to world leaders like the G20 finance ministers and President Joe Biden, which are linked in her biography on the YACAP website. Tan’s activism and writing focus on amplifying “voices from the Global South,” as mentioned in her YACAP biography. She explained their focus on the Global South in an article for Aljazeera, saying countries in that region of the world “are most vulnerable, aren’t able to bounce back, deal with and minimize the loss and damages.” Tan has also engaged in activism through a staged demonstration, wherein she and three fellow activists held “a fake press conference to call out Standard Chartered’s policies on coal” after the company released an announcement, as described in an article from the Sierra Club.