PRESS RELEASE: Applications for the Prestigious 2023 UN Global Climate Action Awards Now Open

Bonn, Germany, 18 September 2023 – Starting today, young people taking bold leadership on climate change can nominate their work for the 2023 United Nations Global Climate Action Awards.

The awards programme, run by UN Climate Change since 2011, recognizes the world’s most innovative examples of action to tackle climate change. This year’s awards will showcase youth and projects taking bold and effective climate action in the areas of energy transition and resilient nature.

The 2023 award winners will be celebrated at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 28) in Expo City, Dubai, United Arab Emirates from 30 November to 12 December 2023.

“The UN Global Climate Action Awards represent an opportunity to recognize the innovative climate action that young people around the world are undertaking to ensure their communities are more sustainable, resilient, and equitable places to live,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell. "The Awards also illustrate the climate leadership that young people are demonstrating, providing an inspiring example for others to follow."

The UN Global Climate Action Awards shine a light on activities which aim to help achieve the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement. The Awards have for example recognized transformational initiatives such as the Government of Quebec’s climate finance program and Microsoft’s internal carbon fee. Other past winners also include the world’s greenest football club, the first all-women solar team in Lebanon, a Swedish restaurant chain that is creating the world’s first ‘climate positive’ menu, and the Danish island of Samsø, which has completely transformed its energy system.

The 2023 UN Global Climate Action Awards will recognize climate action led by young people that is achieving real and tangible results in two categories:

1. Youth leading the energy transition: Recognizing the efforts of youth (up to 35 years of age) in driving renewable energy and/or energy efficiency activities that are locally led and/or community focused. These activities incorporate elements of education, training, and public awareness to achieve goals, and achieve greater equity in the community. 

2. Youth supporting resilient nature: Recognizing innovative work on nature and resiliency by an individual or group of young people (up to 35 years of age) in indigenous and/or local communities. The activities should be designed to restore, maintain, or enhance nature’s resilience or its contributions to people, through nature-based solutions and/or ecosystem-based approaches. These activities incorporate public awareness, public participation, and/or public access to information to achieve its goals, achieving greater equity in the community.

The Awards are implemented in partnership with the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the Permanent Representative of the United Arab Emirates to IRENA.

Applications for the 2023 UN Global Climate Action Award will be accepted until 15 October 2023 at: https://momentum.unfccc.int/