DECEMBER 3, 2024
We are excited to announce the 2024 cohort of our prestigious Climate Breakthrough Award program: Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, Alex Doukas, Kimiko Hirata, and Tero Mustonen. Over the next three years, we will provide each Climate Breakthrough Awardee with a $4 million funding package—the largest climate funding for individuals—and other support to develop, launch, and scale their boldest new initiatives with breakthrough potential to address climate change. This means initiatives that could significantly reduce global annual greenhouse gas emissions, affect entire industries or regions of the world, and materially change the lives of tens of millions of people within ten years of launch.
“I’m honored to welcome Alex, Eriel, Kimiko, and Tero into the Climate Breakthrough Award program. They exemplify the kind of visionary leadership and thinking that lies at the heart of our mission. We’re honored to support them in bringing their most ambitious climate action ideas to life,” Savanna Ferguson, Executive Director of Climate Breakthrough, said in a press release.
The 2024 cohort joins a long list of Climate Breakthrough Awardees who have developed their own initiatives through the program and achieved critical recognition from their peers and the press.
Launched in 2016, the Climate Breakthrough Award program is uniquely designed for social change leaders to develop, launch, and scale their boldest new initiatives with breakthrough potential to address climate change. It fosters breakthrough-oriented work in policy, economic, and social transformation by blending the large-scale innovation focus of institutions known for pursuing breakthrough inventions—like DARPA and ARPA-E—with the nimble and entrepreneurial spirit of startup incubators and venture capital.
With the new cohort, we have now selected 22 individuals and one team of awardees. Over 60% of awardee initiatives have a global scale or Global South focus. Climate Breakthrough Awardees have collectively secured over $236 million in follow-on funding from more than 90 different funders to advance their work. Combined, their Climate Breakthrough initiatives have the potential to reduce global annual greenhouse gas emissions by more than 5.3 gigatons by 2030.
Eriel Tchekwie Deranger
Eriel Tchekwie Deranger is a formidable advocate for Indigenous rights and environmental justice. In 2015, she founded the Canada-based Indigenous Climate Action and has led it to become a powerful advocate for Indigenous sovereignty and rights-based approaches to environmental protection. Through the Climate Breakthrough Award program, Eriel is seeking to pioneer the first-of-its-kind globally coordinated effort to elevate Indigenous-led climate solutions, ensuring they receive the recognition, resources, and representation they deserve on the global stage. Indigenous-led climate solutions are undervalued and underrepresented. This work promises to reshape the global climate movement, ensuring that Indigenous voices are not just included but are central to the fight for climate justice.
Alex Doukas
Alex Doukas is a bold voice in the environmental and climate action sector, recognized for his strategic acumen and ability to build powerful coalitions. Through the Climate Breakthrough Award program, Alex wants to launch a global coalition to hold the oil and gas industry liable for trillions of dollars in cleanup costs associated with fossil fuel production. He believes imposing this liability can constrain their ability to expand capital expenditure, deter further expansion, and challenge their social license. For Alex, the “polluter pays” principle is more than a cornerstone of environmental law—it’s a matter of common sense.
Kimiko Hirata
Kimiko Hirata is the Executive Director of Climate Integrate, an independent think tank she formed in 2022. Kimiko is looking to transform the public narrative about the feasibility and necessity of energy transition in Japan, the world’s fifth-largest carbon dioxide emitter. Through the Climate Breakthrough Award program, she wants to build innovative communication strategies to dismantle the pervasive belief within Japanese society that decarbonization is too costly or burdensome—a hurdle she believes has long dampened public urgency and significantly slowed progress there.
Tero Mustonen
Tero Mustonen is the founder and president of Snowchange Cooperative, a Finland-based organization with a vast network of community partners across the Arctic and boreal regions, working to mitigate climate change, protect biodiversity, and preserve the traditional and Indigenous knowledge that is vital to these ecosystems. Through the Climate Breakthrough Award program, Tero wants to kick off an ambitious effort that builds upon, but significantly expands, Snowchange’s rewilding efforts. His vision is to establish “restoration hubs” in key regions: the European North; Minnesota and Alaska, US; and the Hudson Bay ecoregion of Ontario, Canada.