Influential figures convened to discuss critical climate concerns—and potential avenues for progress—in anticipation of the TIME100 Impact Dinner: Leaders Creating Climate Action, hosted at Casa Camolese in Rio. Global dignitaries are slated to gather this month in Belém, Brazil, for COP30, the upcoming United Nations climate summit.

Kara Hurst

Kara Hurst, Amazon’s chief sustainability officer, addressed the formidable challenge of accelerating climate action sufficiently, as communities worldwide increasingly bear the brunt of its consequences.

“We truly have a finite window of opportunity with the climate crisis,” she stated.

Hurst highlighted Amazon’s strategies to leverage emerging technologies to both enhance customer service and curb emissions, ranging from minimizing packaging to transitioning delivery fleets to electric vehicles.

She also noted that Amazon’s disaster relief unit has effectively deployed new technology to better aid communities following natural catastrophes. “We’ve managed to harness AI in numerous ways to significantly expedite the response to these disasters and furnish us with superior information, guiding first responders to assist and safeguard these communities very, very rapidly.”

Tzeporah Berman

Despite affluent nations scaling back their climate pledges, climate advocate Tzeporah Berman, who chairs the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative advocating for a fresh international accord to cap fossil fuel production, maintains optimism regarding prospects to bring additional countries into the discussion.

“A clear distinction has emerged between nations prepared to commit to a fossil fuel phase-out and those hesitating, alongside leaders who reject the scientific evidence,” she observed. “People are realizing that having a strategic plan will ultimately benefit them.”

She expressed her desire for increased international collaboration to devise a framework supporting a managed reduction in fossil fuel consumption. “Many countries, such as the United States and Canada, are intensifying fossil fuel production,” she commented. “I am genuinely inspired by the countries stepping forward and pioneering a path that is guided by science and founded on inter-country cooperation—because neither a single nation nor a single corporation can achieve this alone.”

Leah Seligmann

Although it appears the global community is no longer on course to achieve the 1.5-degree target stipulated in the Paris Agreement, sustainability champion Leah Seligmann affirmed that considerable progress has been made since the accord’s inception a decade ago. “On one hand, we’ve witnessed more advancement in the past ten years than we could have ever envisioned,” remarked the CEO of The B Team. “We were headed towards a 4-degree world; now, we’re projected for a 2.4-degree world.”

However, she stressed that nations must demonstrate greater ambition. “Reaching this phase in a transition is exceedingly difficult. This isn’t the time for simple fixes like changing lightbulbs to save money,” she explained. “This is the moment where we must undertake larger, more challenging, and riskier investments to truly deliver what is required. The urgency could not be more profound. The necessity could not be greater.”

Wade Crowfoot

Since 2019, Wade Crowfoot has served as California’s secretary for natural resources, dedicated to safeguarding and enhancing the state’s natural environments.

California is already contending with some of the more severe consequences of our warming planet. Climate change contributed to the conditions that fueled wildfires, which scorched over 37,000 acres and obliterated more than 16,000 structures in Los Angeles in January.

It is for this compelling reason that Crowfoot emphasized the paramount importance of adaptation. “Adapting to these shifts, cultivating resilience against these climate-driven threats, is now fundamentally a matter of public safety,” he stated.

Crowfoot expressed optimism that California can glean insights from the international leaders present in Rio, and he firmly believes that leaders must act swiftly to identify solutions that both avert the gravest impacts of climate change and shield the most vulnerable populations.

“This is no longer a crisis of aspiration; it’s a crisis of execution,” he declared.

Jennifer Geerlings-Simons

Jennifer Geerlings-Simons, President of Suriname, was forthright about the global community’s insufficient progress in confining warming to the targets established in the Paris Agreement.

“It appears we will be unable to achieve the 1.5 degrees, so in my estimation, we have not performed particularly well,” she commented.

Nevertheless, Geerlings-Simons held out hope that Indigenous peoples, who reside in and rely on forests, could provide an exemplary model for managing natural resources while simultaneously securing economic advantages.

However, in her view, the critical nature of the climate crisis cannot be overstated. “Climate change is here,” she asserted. “We are witnessing it. I hope that people are recognizing it, and becoming more inclined to take action.”