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.
Inés Yábar is a young activist from Peru who has been actively working towards a more sustainable future since she was 15. By volunteering in beach clean-ups along the coastline of Peru, she helped collect data and organise thousands of volunteers to help inform policies in Peru – leading to the country banning single use plastic bags.
Inés currently serves as Lead of the UN Foundation Next Generation Fellows program, supporting young people’s leadership in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through local and global actions.
Inés is on the board of L.O.O.P. (a grassroots women-led Peruvian social impact company conserving the marine ecosystem) and is a co-founder of Ensemble pour TECHO (an organisation seeking to overcome poverty in Latin America). Her previous experiences include working with organisations in Sierra Leone, France, Lebanon and Japan to reach the 2030 Agenda.
Inés was a part of the Peruvian delegation at COP25 and represented the Missing Majority at COP26 and COP27. She is also a Global Shaper (Lima Hub), co-founder of Mullu (a podcast on sustainable development including Quechua), a Plastic Action Champion and sits on the Global Plastic Action Partnership Advisory committee.
Christiana Figueres is a Costa Rican citizen and was the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 2010 - 2016.
During her tenure, Ms. Figueres brought together national and sub-national governments, corporations and activists, women’s groups, scientists and spiritual communities, financial institutions and NGOs to jointly deliver the historic 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Under this Agreement, 195 sovereign governments decided on a collaborative path to limit future global warming to well below 2°C, and strive for 1.5°C in order to protect the most vulnerable in every nation. For this achievement Ms. Figueres has been credited with forging a new brand of collaborative diplomacy and received multiple awards.
Since then Ms. Figueres has continued to foster rapid action on climate change. She is the co-author of The Future We Choose, The Stubborn Optimist's Guide to the Climate Crisis (Penguin Random House 2019) and co-host of the popular podcast Outrage and Optimism. She sits on the Board of ACCIONA Energía.
She is a graduate of Swarthmore College and the London School of Economics and has been awarded multiple honorary doctorate degrees from academic institutions such as Yale, University of Massachusetts, Georgetown and University of Edinburgh. After decades of living and working abroad, she has moved back to her beloved Costa Rica. She has two fantastic daughters, Naima and Yihana, fountains of much joy. (Photo credit: Bret Hartman / TED)