Five honorees spoke about what gives them hope: Global Citizen co-founder Michael Sheldrick, president and CEO of the World Resources Institute Ani Dasgupta, Telemundo journalist Vanessa Hauc, CEO of CrossBoundary Energy and managing partner of CrossBoundary Group Matthew Tilleard,, and climate activist and co-founder and executive director of the Re-Earth Initiative Xiye Bastida.
As co-founder of Global Citizen, Michael Sheldrick, a 2026 TIME100 Climate honoree, has worked to ensure the fight to end poverty remains interconnected with climate action.
Yet on the other side of the transition, he noted, are people like Bennie, a supervisor at one of South Africa's oldest coal-fired power stations who might soon see the place he has worked at for much of his career sunset. “He said to me, ‘You know, it is sad when eventually we flip the switch and then we turn off this power plant because of the generations of workers it helped support. But most of us understand why that's important. We just hope society will have our backs at the end of the day.’”
Ani Dasgupta
Climate headlines might seem bleak, but leading the World Resources Institute, a non-profit working to improve lives and address climate change, has shown Ani Dasgupta that there are a number of solutions that many might not even realize are out there.
“Solutions like this are happening everywhere in the world, across the world,” said Dasgupta, a 2026 TIME100 Climate honoree. “It is the seed for the new economy.”
As a veteran journalist, Vanessa Huac, another 2026 TIME100 Climate honoree, is all too familiar with how our changing climate has brought devastation to communities around the world.
She called the climate crisis, “one of the greatest challenges of our times,” but added that, while she’s seen some of the ways climate change is destroying communities, her reporting has also revealed examples of resilience and innovation.
“Hope is something that we build. It's a choice that we make every single day, because giving up is not…a choice for us,” she said. “We have only this one beautiful planet, and the future of it depends on what we do today.”
Matthew Tilleard
In his toast, he reflected on how this energy transition is markedly different from those past. “Great energy transitions in our past were all fuel to fuel, wood to coal, coal to oil, oil to gas,” he said. “To be honest, we didn't actually transition.”
First, he noted, solar and batteries operate on an “efficiency curve,” meaning that they get cheaper as more are made. “The panel made today is 98% cheaper than the panel just 25 years ago,” he said.
Most importantly, the transition will have the potential to shore up energy security around the world, he said. “Technology-based energy systems, unlike fuel, make energy sovereign.”
Xiye Bastida
“We come here because we have a bigger responsibility to the future, to our communities, to equity, to just transitions.”
“He told us, 'The reason why my words have been so sharp and my vision has been so grounded is because I listened to you,'” she said, noting the importance of intergenerational conversations on climate change.
“I hope that… we [can] truly look back at this time and see that we are already living the transformation,” she said. “It's not coming; it's already happening.”
TIME100 Impact Dinner: Leaders Creating Climate Action was presented by Rolex.
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