Climate Leaders Call For Renewed Hope and Ambition at TIME100 COP29 Impact Dinner

Climate leaders from around the world gathered at TIME’s COP29 Impact Dinner in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Nov. 13 for a celebration of the TIME100 Climate leadership list. Nations are currently attending the annual U.N. COP29 climate summit in order to continue pushing the world to meet its goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C, including working to unlock the necessary tools and financing to achieve progress.

“No one of us is going to solve this challenge alone, and we need leadership in all of its forms if we’re going to have a chance at accelerating climate action and climate progress,” said Shyla Raghav, TIME’s Chief Climate Officer, who began the evening by speaking about the importance of celebrating and elevating different forms of leadership when it comes to climate action.

The TIME100 Climate list celebrates decision makers, executives, researchers, and innovators shaping business and climate action. TIME’s Senior Correspondent, Justin Worland highlighted the accomplishments of some of the list’s honorees, from Vanessa Chan, chief commercialization officer for the U.S. Department of Energy, to Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development. And several of the listees were present at the dinner.

This includes Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO and special representative of the U.N. secretary-general for Sustainable Energy for All, and co-chair of U.N. Energy who discussed inequality in clean energy, highlighting the fact that only 1.6% of clean energy investments went to Africa last year. “You can’t do [the] energy transition in the Global North and leave the Global South behind,” she said.

Majid Al Suwaidi, CEO of Altérra and another individual on the TIME100 Climate list this year, meanwhile argued that, while the climate crisis might seem insurmountable, there has never been a more critical moment for climate optimism. “2024 has been a year of big political changes and geopolitical tension, and there’s been a growing mood of apprehension across the climate world. But if I’m being frank, this is not the time to be pessimistic or to throw up our hands and say we’re all doomed,” he said. “In fact, I believe this is the moment we rise up and lean into hope, because despair is the enemy of climate action, because hope is a powerful motivator for action, and because we really do have reasons to be optimistic.” 

Later in the evening, Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO of Acumen, spoke about the importance of “celebrating heroes that are too often unsung,” explaining the impact an entrepreneur’s solar technology had on village women. 

Tzeporah Berman, founder of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative and included on this year’s TIME100 Climate list, spoke about the necessity of placing oil, gas, and coal—which make up 86% of global emissions—at the center of conversations on climate change. “We need to build hope through our actions, through these difficult and honest conversations that lead to bold new ideas that can chart a new course. Some say to me that an idea of a fossil fuel treaty that could be a companion to the Paris Agreement, a whole new treaty, it’s too big. It’s too new. It’s too bold. But we know here in this room… we can’t afford more of the same.”

Muhamad ended the night’s speeches by urging for more global investment in the fight to stop deforestation. “The critical question is, where are the finances to sustain results that bring climate action?” Muhamad said. “Saving the Amazon is not a problem only of the governments that are there. It is one of the pillars of climate stability, and we have proven that we can be successful in the work. But in order to sustain that work, we need to shift economic rules, and we need to shift the access to finance from the Global South.”

TIME100 Impact Dinner: Leaders Creating Climate Action was presented by Fortescue and MOL.