How We Chose the 100 Most Influential Climate Leaders of 2025
As the U.S. has backed away in 2025 from using legislation to tackle the climate crisis, business leaders globally have pushed forward to attempt to fill the gaps. It’s a theme that proves inescapable in this year’s TIME100 Climate, our list of influential leaders driving business climate action. Around the world, decision-makers, executives, researchers, and innovators are working to help unlock the necessary funding and resources needed for successful and equitable climate action.
Some climate leaders in the U.S.—like Tyler Norris, a former Duke researcher who published a breakout study on how we can make AI data centers’ power use more sustainable—are focused on improving the clean energy supply chain stateside. Our issue profiles Norris as he joins Google’s Advanced Energy team to implement those strategies. Abroad, governments are pushing forward climate legislation that affects businesses: Jennifer Geerlings-Simons, the president of Suriname, is launching forest protections to keep the country one of just three carbon-negative nations in the world; and Pralhad Joshi, India’s renewable energy minister, has set some of the world’s most ambitious renewable energy goals—and is on track to achieve them ahead of schedule.
To identify this year’s changemakers, TIME’s editors spent months vetting names from across sectors. We valued measurable, scalable achievements over commitments and announcements. We favored more recent action. The result is our third annual TIME100 Climate list. These 100 people represent the power of individuals to make significant progress in influencing the climate economy. We asked them to talk about it, hoping their words will stir others to do the same.