ActNowFilm: youth climate leaders in conversation with climate experts is an international youth voices in climate change project, selected to showcase at COP28. The film is based on 1-2-1 conversations between 30 pairs of youth climate leaders and world leading climate experts.
Cynthia Yue is an international human rights, climate action, and social equity leader and advocate. She served as the 10th Youth Observer to the United Nations from 2021-2022, where she represented U.S. youth at the UN and led global initiatives on the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
With prior sustainability experience as a former Fellow at the Embassy of France and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Youth Ambassador, she has reached millions of people, including by reinforcing the European Union's commitment to child welfare through launching a youth advocacy campaign that amassed over 450 million engagements. As a Fellow at the White House Mental Health Youth Action Forum, she presented to President Biden, First Lady Biden, and the U.S. Surgeon General on combatting the national youth mental health crisis in underserved communities.
Cynthia has spoken at the White House Summit for Democracy, the UN General Assembly, and the U.S. Institute of Peace and has been featured in the BBC documentary Malcolm in the Midlands, U.S. Department of State’s Share America, and NBC News. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from the George Washington University with a B.A. in International Affairs and is currently a Master in Public Policy candidate at Harvard University.
Dr. Vanessa Kerry is the co-founder and CEO of Seed Global Health, a non-profit organization focused on health systems strengthening and transformation through long-term investments and training of the health workforce. Under her leadership, Seed has helped educate more than 34,000 doctors, nurses, and midwives in seven countries, helping to improve health care for more than 73 million people.
In June 2023, Dr. Kerry was appointed WHO Special Envoy for Climate Change and Health. She has spoken and written about the effects of climate change on human health and health systems and the need to integrate a health-centered response into climate change mitigation and adaptation measures. Dr. Kerry is supporting the COP28 Presidency to shape the first-ever COP Day of Health on December 3, 2023 and leading efforts to build advocacy around the impact of climate change on health and ensure equitable and just climate action.
As co-chair of a workstream on the World Health Organization’s Public Health and Emergency Health Workforce Roadmap, she is helping to galvanize consensus for investment in surveillance, detection, and treatment for the next pandemic. She is a former critical care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and serves as the associate director of partnerships and global initiatives at the MGH Center for Global Health. She directs the Global Public Policy and Social Change program at Harvard Medical School where she has focused on links between security and health. She is the mother of two children.