Climate Warriors
In the lead up to the historic COP21 UN summit we collaborated with Inez Van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin on a long form immersive piece for Vogue, celebrating 12 of the most formidable women on the front line fighting against global warming.
Left: Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim is the cochair of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change.
Right: Achala Abeysinghe of Sri Lanka is the legal adviser on climate change negotiations to the Chair of the Least Developed Countries.
Christiana Figueres is the United Nations’s top climate change official
Left: Amina Mohammed is the special adviser on post-2015 development planning to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Right: Joan Bavaria is the founder of Ceres, a nonprofit coalition that advocates for sustainable business practices
Elizabeth Yeampierre is the co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance, and director of Uprose, Brooklyn's oldest Latino community based organization
Left: Priscilla Achakpa is an environmental activist from Nigeria and the executive director of the Women Environmental Programme. Right: May Boeve is the executive director of the grassroots climate change organization 350.org
Farhana Yamin is n International climate lawyer, who attended the very first climate negotiation in 1992, in Lima, Peru
Left: Rachel Kyte is the vice president of the World Bank Group and special envoy for climate change; Right: Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner is a poet and climate activist from the Marshall Islands
Laurence Tubiana, France’s ambassador for the international climate talks
Dessima Williams is a long-haul climate activist who served as the Grenadian ambassador to the United Nations
Photographed by Inez and Vinoodh
Reported by Cameron Russell
Climate Warriors
In the lead up to the historic COP21 UN summit we collaborated with Inez Van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin on a long form immersive piece for Vogue, celebrating 12 of the most formidable women on the front line fighting against global warming.
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim is the cochair of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change
Achala Abeysinghe of Sri Lanka is the legal adviser on climate change negotiations to the Chair of the Least Developed Countries.
Christiana Figueres is the United Nations’s top climate change official
Joan Bavaria is the founder of Ceres, a nonprofit coalition that advocates for sustainable business practices.
Amina Mohammed is the special adviser on post-2015 development planning to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
Elizabeth Yeampierre is the co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance, and director of Uprose, Brooklyn's oldest Latino community based organization
Priscilla Achakpa is an environmental activist from Nigeria and the executive director of the Women Environmental Programme.
Every year, the United Nations holds a summit on climate change working to persuade countries, large and small, to give up fossil fuels. Past negotiations have produced important treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Copenhagen Accord. This years meeting—entitled The COP21—is likely to yield the world's first binding, universal agreement to cut carbon emissions and begin to fully address climate change.
The stakes have never been higher: Scientists have identified an increase of only 2 degrees Celsius as a dangerous tipping point for the planet, and we are already 0.85 degrees of the way there. But hope, too, is also at an all-time high; the international community has never been closer to taking unified, decisive action. Here, photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin take a closer look, and celebrate, 13 fearless women leading the way.
Excerpt from publication in 2015.
May Boeve is the executive director of the grassroots climate change organization 350.org
Rachel Kyte is the vice president of the World Bank Group and special envoy for climate change
Farhana Yamin is n International climate lawyer, who attended the very first climate negotiation in 1992, in Lima, Peru
Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner is a poet and climate activist from the Marshall Islands
Laurence Tubiana, France’s ambassador for the international climate talks
Dessima Williams is a long-haul climate activist who served as the Grenadian ambassador to the United Nations
Photographed by Inez and Vinoodh
Reported by Cameron Russell