UN to honour two climate activists at COP28
By Samuel Ogunsona reporting from Dubai
The United Nations has announced plans to honour two young climate activists at the ongoing COP28 in Expo city, Dubai.
The two activists are Michelle Zárate Palomec of Mexico and Sebastian Mwaura of Kenya.
The two emerged as winners of the UN Global Climate Action Awards.
The selection which took rigorous processes saw hundreds of applications from 120 different countries around the world.
The two award winners will be celebrated at an award ceremony on Friday 8 December 2023 in the Global Climate Action area, Arena 1, starting at 18:00. Irohinoodua will be at the event.
Award-winning journalist and climate advocate Sophia Li will serve as the event’s Master of Ceremonies.
However, the award is to celebrate their outstanding efforts to make their communities more sustainable, resilient and equitable places to live.
Zárate Palomec, age 27, leads efforts within an organization called Espacio de Encuentro de las Culturas Originarias to provide access to clean and sufficient water for highly marginalized indigenous communities in the state of Oaxaca, where water resources are scarce and water pollution accentuates social and gender inequalities.
Palomec, who won under the Award’s “resilient nature” category said, “The communities involved in the project benefit from affordable and innovative ecotechnologies for water sanitation, micro-watershed recovery and the ability to adapt to the main hydro-meteorological events to which they are vulnerable,”
Mwaura, age 35, is the co-founder of Yna Kenya, whose primary objective is to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles by providing a robust charging network that is powered by renewable energy sources. He also started the HerGo programme to bring women into the e-mobility transport sector, aiming at creating 12,000 jobs for women as drivers and charging-station owners.
This initiative was born from our commitment to mitigating climate change by promoting renewable energy in the transportation sector,” said Kabui, who won under the Award’s “energy transition” .
