The Climate Leadership Initiative (CLI) prepares climate leaders and changemakers from the Global Majority to be at the center of climate action and co-create equitable climate outcomes. We realise care-based approaches and long-term accompaniment to allow leaders to access intentional, explorative and safe spaces as they grow their technical competence, networks and influence along with developing key leadership skills and peer-to-peer ecosystems.
We do not simply equip leaders. We accompany them over time as they navigate real leadership challenges.
Leadership development happens through intentional, explorative and safe spaces that recognise the personal and political realities of climate leadership.
We connect leaders across countries, sectors, generations and areas of climate work.
Our work centres Global Majority realities, knowledge and lived experience rather than imposing a universal leadership model.
The ultimate purpose of leadership development is not simply to help individuals evolve their careers. It is enabling leaders to change the systems and spaces in which climate action happens.
Questioning what counts as knowledge and which knowledges are left out to find new pathways that are rooted in grassroots realities.
People from the Global Majority are often closest to the impacts of climate change, yet remain underrepresented in spaces where climate decisions are made.
Emerging leaders often have technical expertise and lived experience but lack access to the networks, resources, mentorship and leadership spaces needed to translate these into sustained influence.
Lived experience, local and community knowledge, local innovation and Global Majority perspectives are often undervalued in global climate discourse and decision-making.
If climate leaders and changemakers from the Global Majority have the skills, confidence, relationships, resources and influence to lead → and if they are supported to transform the spaces in which climate decisions are made, organisations are built, and movements are activated → then climate action will increasingly be shaped by the people and communities most affected by climate change, leading to more equitable and locally grounded climate outcomes and scaled up climate action on all fronts.
Lived Realities + Care + Capacity + Connection + Influence → Leadership → Systems Change → Equitable Climate Outcomes → Scaled Up Climate Action
Our trusted flagship programme.
We support young Global Majority climate leaders to develop the skills, confidence, networks and relationships so that they participate meaningfully in global climate diplomacy and negotiations.
Leaders are better equipped to:
Intermediate outcome:
Young Global Majority leaders influence global climate decision-making.
Long-term outcome:
Climate decisions increasingly reflect the knowledge, priorities and lived realities of communities most affected by climate change and climate action is scaled up at all levels.
39+
leaders
29
countries represented
89%
of alumni accessed key opportunities
04
UNFCCC vulnerable groups collaborated with
89 percent of alumni credit the program with helping them access key opportunities such as being recognized as knowledge providers and active negotiators of their official national climate delegations, admitted to academic programs, and securing jobs including positions within the UN.
We support leaders who are building and leading climate organisations in the Global Majority to develop the leadership capacities, relationships and organisational practices required to make their organisations more resilient and effective.
Leaders are better equipped to:
Intermediate outcome:
Global Majority climate organisations are stronger, more resilient and better equipped to pursue long-term change.
Long-term outcome:
A stronger ecosystem of Global Majority-led climate institutions is able to influence climate policy, practice and public discourse and climate action is scaled up at all levels.
We support individual Global Majority changemakers to turn ideas, lived experience and collective knowledge into bold interventions, campaigns and climate action.
Individual changemakers are better equipped to:
Intermediate outcome:
More bold, locally rooted and connected climate activations emerge from the Global Majority.
Long-term outcome:
The Global Majority increasingly shapes perspectives, solutions and forms of organising and climate action is scaled up at all levels.
A new era for CLI is here as we take on new challenges by expanding half a decade of flagship programming with new pilots and new ideas. Let’s do this together - we would love to hear from you and get your insights to shape our future programmes and strategy.