Our Favorite Activists From The Independent’s Climate 100 List — And, Yes, Musk Makes The Grade

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The Independent created the Climate 100 List to make transparent the difficult work of climate activists. The UK publication argues that, although we are near tipping points at which the drastic effects of the climate crisis caused by humans will become irreversible, innovators around the globe have offered hope. They’ve been pushing to have their voices heard and are protecting the environment for the next generation. They’re also ushering in a better, cleaner, and greener future.

The Independent is a publication that is deeply dedicated to fostering global change, and environmental issues have been at the center of its journalism for nearly 40 years.

The Climate 100 List highlights 100 famous and lesser-known individuals from the world over. They come from many different sectors including science, academia, activism, philanthropy, sport, travel, business, tech, fashion, and entertainment.

Climate 100 celebrates “the remarkable achievements of individuals and organisations who are leading the way in tackling one of the most urgent challenges of our time,” says Geordie Greig, editor-in-chief of The Independent. “This initiative reaffirms our commitment to informing and inspiring action through stories that drive real change for the planet.”

To choose the Climate 100 finalists, The Independent teamed up with Cool Earth. They’re an international NGO that partners with indigenous peoples and local communities who live in the rainforest and who have a long history of effectively protecting rainforests.

For this article we’ve highlighted the activists from the Climate 100 list whom we at CleanTechnica recognize in our own work, over and over, for their constant efforts to mitigate the climate crisis.

The Climate Activists Who’ve Given Us Hope

Joe Biden: The current US President renewed the nation’s commitment to the Paris Agreement on the first day he took office. Joe Biden pushed for the biggest climate act ever in the US, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which is taking hold to reduce climate pollution across multiple sectors of the economy with climate resilience, mitigation, and net zero goals combined to change the way the US approaches energy consumption. The groundbreaking legislation celebrated its second anniversary on August 16 and is already stimulating electric vehicle adoption, solar power adoption, wind power development, battery cell and battery pack production, mining and processing of battery minerals, adoption of heat pumps, and other energy efficiency improvements.

Michael Bloomberg: Former New York City mayor and founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies, Michael Bloomberg continually makes the case for more renewable energy and less electricity from thermal generation. He has called for the phasing-out of coal power and has created a $500 million fund dedicated to closing coal plants and transitioning to cleaner energy sources — Beyond Carbon is designed to put the US on track towards a 100% clean energy economy.

Leonardo DiCaprio: He’s an actor and environmentalist. He was designated as the United Nations Messenger of Peace for climate change in 2014. Leonardo DiCaprio’s foundation has funded over 200 projects across more than 50 countries, protecting endangered species, restoring ecosystems, providing clean water, and funding renewable energy. In the past year, he has backed a campaign calling for Scotland to become the first “Rewilding Nation” in the world.

Jane Fonda: The 86-year-old actor Jane Fonda launched Fire Drill Fridays. Conducted alongside Greenpeace, this series of weekly protests in Washington DC urges political leaders to take stronger action on climate change and to educate people about climate justice, sustainability, and environmental policy. She also founded the Jane Fonda Climate political action committee, which raises money to defeat the fossil fuel industry’s influence on US politics and elect climate champions across government.

Jane Goodall: Jane Goodall is best known for her pioneering research on chimpanzees in Tanzania’s Gombe preserve, a solitary pursuit that somehow lead to a decades-long sprint as an environmental advocate that has connected her with millions of people around the planet. A renowned conservationist and ethologist, Goodall has warned of the intersection of deforestation and pensions, urging people instead to invest in projects that help to protect and restore the beautiful places of our planet for future generations.

Al Gore:  Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States, is a Nobel laureate who founded the Climate Reality Project in 2005. The Project has trained more than 3.5 million people worldwide to catalyze a global solution to the climate crisis by making urgent action a necessity across every sector of society. They recruit, train, and mobilize people of all walks of life to work for just climate solutions that speed energy transition worldwide and open the door to a better tomorrow for us all.

António Guterres: The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has called for an end to fossil fuel advertising advertising. He has explained how 99% of humanity breathes polluted air, which leads to an estimated 8 million premature deaths — including more than 700,000 children under five. Under his leadership, the UN has escalated climate action advocacy, urging countries to meet and exceed the goals of 2015’s legally-binding Paris Agreement. He wants to see global net-zero by 2050, with the more prosperous nations reaching the goal by 2040.

Michael Mann: Michael Mann is a climatologist and geophysicist who first gained widespread attention for a 1988 graph termed the “hockey stick” for its dramatic illustration of the warming planet. Mann was a Lead Author on the Observed Climate Variability and Change chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Scientific Assessment Report in 2001 and has worked constantly since to help us survive the climate crisis. Dr. Mann is always a trusted friend of CleanTechnica, graciously ready to offer his insights into climate issues when so requested.

Stella McCartney: The clothing industry is responsible for about 1.2 billion tons of carbon emissions each year. Stella McCartney, who launched her fashion line in 2001, is calls the fashion industry “incredibly wasteful and harmful to the environment,” and she refuses to incorporate any animal products into her fashion line. Her activism on environmental issues includes regenerative farming practices in her supply chain and expanded use of bio-based materials.

Bill McKibben: An activist, writer, and professor, Bill McKibben helped found 350.org, the first global grassroots climate campaign, which has organized protests on every continent, including Antarctica, for climate action. He was awarded the Gandhi Peace Award in 2013. In 2021, he founded Third Act, an activist group for older environmentalists, with the support of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Jane Fonda.

Elon Musk: As Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk has reinvented personal transportation. Although his recent right wing politics contradict the company’s mission for a sustainable future, he has built a vertical infrastructure in which a realistic plan for a world where solar energy, running on batteries, and transport by electric vehicles is within reach.

MacKenzie Scott: In 2020 philanthropist MacKenzie Scott gave away $5.8 billion of her wealth and a further $2.7 billion in 2021 — all of it unrestricted. Among the beneficiaries, she donated $15 million to Global Fishing Watch, an independent nonprofit that creates and shares data on the ocean to increase the transparency of fisheries and help improve marine resilience, and $20 million to Blue Ventures, which supports coastal communities and small-scale fishing operations. The recipients have autonomy to empower grassroots groups living and working in the face of the climate crisis.

JB Straubel: Tesla cofounder and longtime CTO JB Straubel left Tesla and founded Redwood Materials, focusing 100% on battery recycling. Realizing that electrification is projected to increase lithium-ion demand over 500% by 2030 with a supply chain that is unprepared to support that growth, the company is dedicated to creating powerful new batteries from recycled lithium-ion batteries. It is attempting to break China’s stranglehold on battery materials by creating a domestic loop using recycled critical metals.

Greta Thunberg: In 2018, at the age of 15, Greta Thunberg inspired a global movement after holding her first school climate strike outside the Swedish parliament, which called for the end of reliance on fossil fuels. She garnered huge media attention, and thousands of students around the world joined her Fridays For Future strikes. Her book, The Climate Book, includes advice from nine climate activists on how to stop destroying the Earth. Thunberg was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize every year between 2019 and 2023.

King Charles III: Charles Philip Arthur George Windsor has been an advocate throughout his life for forest, soil, ocean, and biodiversity conservation. He has pushed businesses to invest in programs to preserve and value nature. A champion of organic food and agriculture, biofuels and wind farms, the King has used his monarchical connections to to encourage political and business changes on climate.

Prince William: Prince William Arthur Louis Windsor used his speech at the celebrations for the Queen’s platinum jubilee in 2022 to talk publicly about climate change. His $1.3 million Earthshot Prize panel searches the globe for innovations that will help repair the planet, awarding the very best five solutions each year to scale their work. By awarding winners with £1 million each, the Prince of Wales is doing his part with a forward-looking approach within his symbolic grasp.

Final Thoughts About The Climate 100 List

There are many, many more deserving climate activists on the Climate 100 List than is room for here. Is someone missing from this highlighted account whom you think is deserving? Give ’em a shout out in the comments section, please.