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.
Karan Jerath is the youngest honouree on the 2016 Forbes 30 Under 30 Energy List and has been appointed as one of 17 United Nations Young Leader for the Sustainable Development Goals.
Whilst still in high school, Karan developed a novel patented invention that targets remediation methods for subsea oil spills, which has earned him the Intel Foundation's Global Young Scientist Award alongside other recognitions.
Karan uses his platform to promote STEM education and entrepreneurship, encouraging young people to take action on sustainability issues. He also advises multinational corporations on their sustainability strategies.
Karan has featured in the documentary series ‘The Power of the Centennials’ by Bancolombia, the most sustainable bank in the world as reported by Dow Jones. As part of this documentary, he had direct conversations with the President and CEO of a major Colombian mining and ceramics company, and was ultimately able to have them commit to more sustainable business practices.
He has been featured by outlets such as Forbes, New York Times, Vanity Fair, SXSW, NPR, ABC, Huffington Post, Washington Post and Dinero, and he has spoken at over 80 global conferences including the United Nations, UNICEF, Misk Foundation and One Young World.
Karan is currently leading product and material science at Squared Circles, a venture studio focused on investing in and building businesses tied to regenerative material science.
Nigel Topping was the UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP26, appointed by the UK Prime Minister in January 2020. In this role Nigel mobilised the global private sector and local governments to take bold action on climate change, launching the ‘Race to Zero’ and ‘Race to Resilience’ campaigns and, with Mark Carney, the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero.
Nigel is now a global advisor to governments, financial institutions and private companies on climate and industrial strategy. He is currently Business Champion for the UK Climate Change Committee. He is also a non-executive director of the UK Infrastructure Bank, an Honorary Professor of Economics at Exeter University and was awarded the honour of CMG in Queen Elizabeth’s final honours list in 2022.
Before taking up the role as UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP26, Nigel was CEO of We Mean Business, a coalition of businesses working to accelerate the transition to a zero carbon economy. Prior to that he was executive director of the Carbon Disclosure Project, following an 18-year career in the private sector, having worked across the world in emerging markets and manufacturing.