september 15, 2025
We’re proud to announce our 2025 Climate Breakthrough Awardees: Alessandra Orofino, Gavin McCormick, Liming Qiao, Ramón Méndez Galain, and a team of three—Giuliana Furci, Merlin Sheldrake, and Toby Kiers. We will provide each of the five Awardees $4 million—the largest climate award for individuals—in multiyear, flexible funding to develop, launch, and scale their boldest new initiatives for large-scale policy, economic, and social transformation to address the climate crisis.
“I’m constantly amazed by the caliber of our Awardees, and the 2025 cohort is no exception,” said Savanna Ferguson, Executive Director of Climate Breakthrough, in a press release. “At a time when global uncertainties and challenges threaten climate action, what we’ve seen with all our Awardees shows that when you give capable people the resources and freedom to pursue their boldest ideas, they can create the transformation the world needs.”
Former US Vice President Al Gore, who has previously collaborated with some of the 2025 Awardees, offered his congratulations: “To solve the climate crisis, we need leaders who are thinking big to help reshape policy, economic, and social systems in order to create a sustainable world.” He added, “This is a moment of full potential, and I cannot wait to see how these 2025 Awardees will rise to the occasion.”
Alessandra Orofino
The founder of Peri Productions, Alessandra Orofino (Brazil) is a visionary cultural strategist and narrative producer. Through our program, Alessandra will develop a communications initiative that aims to scale cultural change and galvanize public commitment across Brazil for protecting the Amazon. In fostering deep cultural change, Brazilians can stop deforestation and enshrine durable policy protections for the Amazon.
Gavin McCormick
Gavin McCormick (United States) is a pioneering climate technology leader who cofounded WattTime, developing real-time emission reduction technology now built into over one billion devices sold by major companies, and Climate TRACE, recognized as Fast Company’s #5 most innovative company worldwide. Through the program, Gavin wants to revolutionize carbon accounting rules for emerging green industries that, without proper oversight, could inadvertently increase pollution by gigatons. If successful, this can ensure that governments and private sector actors make decisions that decrease emissions in reality, not just on paper.
Liming Qiao
Liming Qiao (Singapore) is a pioneering strategist in Asia’s energy transition with over two decades of experience in everything from climate negotiations to renewable energy deployment. Through the program, Liming is creating the first coalition targeting grid flexibility and energy storage bottlenecks in the renewable energy transition across the ASEAN region, the world’s fourth-largest energy consumer.
Ramón Méndez Galain
Ramón Méndez Galain (Uruguay) shaped Uruguay’s transformation to 98% renewable electricity. He now serves as Executive Director of Ivy, an environmental NGO that advises governments across Latin America. Through the program, he will scale Ivy’s demonstrated approach and partner with countries across the Global South to address systemic barriers that have prevented them from replicating Uruguay’s success.
Giuliana Furci, Merlin Sheldrake, Toby Kiers
Giuliana Furci (Chile), Merlin Sheldrake (United Kingdom), and Toby Kiers (Netherlands) represent an unprecedented collaboration bringing together fungi conservation advocacy, science communication, and cutting-edge research. Giuliana founded the world’s first fungi-focused nonprofit and successfully advocated for Chile to become the first country including fungi in environmental law. Merlin authored the million-copy bestseller “Entangled Life,” bringing fungi into public consciousness.Toby co-founded SPUN and uses innovative research combining robotics and imaging to map underground fungal networks.
Through the program, the team spotlights a massive blind spot in climate strategy: fungi. They want to establish the legal, regulatory, and scientific groundwork to integrate fungi into global climate agendas and on-the-ground restoration efforts with significant carbon sequestration potential.
Looking Forward
The 2025 cohort is the largest in the history of the Climate Breakthrough Award program. More than numbers, we believe this milestone reflects the growth and maturity of our organization. What began nearly a decade ago as an experiment in how climate philanthropy can better support visionary leadership has evolved into a trusted platform consistently identifying exceptional leaders and effectively supporting them to pursue their most audacious ideas.
Our philanthropic program is designed to bridge the gap between ambition and action, removing common philanthropic barriers so these leaders can pursue solutions as innovative and incisive as the problem demands. With our support, Climate Breakthrough Awardees have launched initiatives that are shaping consequential climate conversations, challenging outdated assumptions, and pushing for transformative change where it’s long overdue. Their projects span the globe: several are global in scope, while others operate in Latin America, OECD Countries, Climate Vulnerable Countries, Europe, North America, China, and Africa.
Over the years, we have watched their projects evolve from “underexplored,” “too ambitious,” and “too improbable” to become the new norm. They are earning critical recognition from their peers and the press. And they are attracting significant additional funding. In fact, as of last year, our Awardees have collectively secured more than $236 million in additional support from more than 90 funders to advance their Climate Breakthrough Award work.
Making the improbable the new norm is the work Climate Breakthrough exists to do. As former Vice President Al Gore said in congratulating the 2025 Awardees: “This is a moment of full potential.” We couldn’t agree more.