Haven Coleman is a 16-year-old climate activist from Denver. Coleman’s introduction to climate change was in fifth grade, when her teacher “brought up deforestation” when talking about the ancient Amazon trade, which sparked Coleman’s curiosity about deforestation prevention and later, her interest in the wider climate movement, as reported by CNN.
Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner is a self-described “Marshallese poet, writer, performance artist and journalist,” according to her website. Jetn̄il-Kijiner is from the Marshall Islands and is currently based in their capital city, Majuro. According to her website, Jetn̄il-Kijiner’s main focuses are nuclear testing and climate change.
Aletta Brady defines themself as a “queer, nonbinary, bisexual organizer, futurist, writer and narrative activist” living in Minnesota, according to their website. Brady has been involved in climate activism for years. As a teenager, Brady “helped pass legislation through the Sierra Club to reduce school bus idling and retrofit over 3,000 school buses,” according to Art Sphere Inc.
Anuna de Wever Van der Heyden is a 20-year-old climate activist based in Belgium. De Wever began their activism in December 2018 after Belgium decided to not “sign a new declaration on addressing climate change at the COP24 summit,” according to Vogue. De Wever was looking for organizing strategies and a way to respond to Belgium’s inaction when they found fellow climate activist Greta Thunberg’s approach. Two weeks after COP24, de Wever staged “their first protest in the same mold … on the streets of Brussels,” as reported by Vogue.
Sônia Guajajara is a 48-year-old Indigenous activist, environmentalist and politician from Brazil.
Guajajara is known as the coordinator for Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil or the Association for Indigenous People of Brazil, according to Believe Earth. Guajajara also participates in larger world forums like the U.N. Human Rights Council and the U.N. Climate Negotiations to share experiences of Indigenous people in Brazil to a global audience, according to Indigenous Rights International. In an op-ed for The New York Times, Guajajara pointed to how climate change and the destruction of resources like the Amazon rainforest have begun “threatening our way of life” and culture.
Disha Ravi is a 23-year-old climate activist from Bengaluru, India. Ravi, who became involved in climate activism at age 19, is a co-founder of the Fridays for Future’s group in India. Prior to learning about the climate crisis, Ravi “believed that the hardships faced by the people in her village, Bandihalli in Karnataka, were normal,” as said in an interview with Forbes India. An article in The Guardian reported that her village, Bandihalli, “would flood every time it rained, getting worse every year.” The article quoted Ravi in an interview saying she had seen her “grandparents, who are farmers, struggle with the effects of the climate crisis,” but she wasn’t yet aware of the true source of these issues at the time.
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.
Iris Duquesne is an 18 year old climate activist from France. Duquesne first became aware of climate change during her late elementary school years, according to a podcast interview with The Guardian. She assumed that adults and those in power were doing something to combat the climate crisis, but when she looked into the issue she was underwhelmed by the amount of attention it was receiving. Duquesne said she wanted to “bring [her] opinion to the table and try to do something.”
