--- description: Find out why Jennifer Geerlings-Simons is on TIME's 2025 list of the 100 most influential leaders driving business climate action. title: Jennifer Geerlings-Simons: The 100 Most Influential Climate Leaders of 2025 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt71fbb3cbcd9bc2e2/6998cb05c8dcb417d9b50988/Leaders-Jennifer-Geerlings-Simons.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Oct 30, 2025 # Jennifer Geerlings-Simons President, Republic of Suriname by [Esha Chhabra](/author/esha-chhabra/) ## Esha Chhabra Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  Photo-Illustration by TIME (Source Photo: Ranu Abhelakh—AFP/Getty Images) Jennifer Geerlings-Simons made history in July 2025 as Suriname's first female president. Within days of taking office, she signaled a sharp stance toward environmental protection and Indigenous rights—a timely shift for one of only three countries in the world that absorbs more carbon dioxide than it releases. The new president wasted no time. She declared Indigenous and tribal land rights a top government priority, promising to pass long-stalled protective laws and halt unauthorized land sales. By August, she had announced a moratorium on new large-scale logging permits and launched a comprehensive national forest survey. The following month, she sat down with the Association of Indigenous Village Leaders to fast-track recognition of ancestral territories. "Sustainability cannot just be about emissions reduction," Geerlings-Simons says. "It must also mean protecting the ecosystems that regulate the climate and supporting the people who care for them." That principle underpins her push to make community-led forest conservation "a core development strategy" rather than an afterthought. She's particularly focused on tropical peatlands and mangroves. These are ecosystems that store "ten times more per hectare than upland forests" but are vanishing quickly with little international support, she says. At international summits throughout 2025, she's defended Suriname's commitment to maintaining over 90% forest coverage. Her message to world leaders is blunt: "We are running out of excuses, but we are not running out of solutions." She wants major economies to redirect fossil fuel subsidies toward "safeguarding forests, wetlands, and biodiversity" and empowering Indigenous communities. Asked what gives her hope, Geerlings-Simons points to grassroots movements proving "that development and planetary stewardship can go hand in hand." As she puts it: "History will judge us not by what we intended, but by what we were brave enough to do." Geerlings-Simons answered TIME’s survey on the state of the climate movement: **What is the single most important action you think the public, or a specific company or government, needs to take in the next year to advance the climate agenda?** The single most important action is for the world’s largest economies to redirect a small fraction of the public money that still flows to fossil fuels into nature protection and community-led climate solutions. Even 1% of the vast sums currently used to subsidize fossil fuel production and consumption could finance the permanent protection of the world’s remaining primary forests, accelerate the global transition to renewable energy, and empower Indigenous and local communities who are already safeguarding much of the planet’s biodiversity. This one act would signal a decisive shift—from financing destruction to financing regeneration and conservation. **What’s one sustainability effort you personally will try to adopt in the next year?** In the next year, I intend to make community-led forest conservation the centerpiece of our national climate action—not as a side initiative, but as a core development strategy. That means working to secure legal recognition and protection of Indigenous and tribal territories, instating new protected areas, and linking these efforts directly to global climate finance mechanisms. My belief is that sustainability cannot just be about emissions reduction—it must also mean protecting the ecosystems that regulate the climate and supporting the people who care for them. By placing local communities at the center of climate solutions, we can protect nature, strengthen cultural heritage, and create new pathways out of poverty—all at the same time. **What is a climate solution that isn't getting the attention or funding it deserves?** One climate solution that remains vastly underfunded and under-recognized is the protection and restoration of tropical peatlands and mangrove ecosystems. These landscapes store enormous amounts of carbon—often ten times more per hectare than upland forests—yet they are disappearing at alarming rates due to agriculture, mining, and coastal development. Beyond their carbon value, they provide critical flood protection, biodiversity habitat, and fisheries that sustain millions of people. Despite this, they receive only a fraction of global climate finance. Investing in the preservation and recovery of these natural carbon sinks is one of the most cost-effective and scalable ways to slow climate change while delivering huge co-benefits for communities and nature alike. **What gives you hope about the future of the planet?** What gives me hope is the way people—especially young people, Indigenous leaders, and local communities—are transforming the climate movement from the ground up. Around the world, they are not waiting for permission or perfect policies; they are building regenerative economies, restoring landscapes, and proving that development and planetary stewardship can go hand in hand. We are also seeing a powerful shift in the private sector, where companies increasingly understand that their future depends on a stable climate and a thriving biosphere. This convergence of grassroots action, political will, and business innovation gives me confidence that we are entering an era where protecting the planet is not seen as a burden, but as the greatest opportunity of our time. **If you could stand up and talk to world leaders at the next COP, what would you say?** I would tell them that we are running out of excuses, but we are not running out of solutions. The science is clear, the technology exists, and the resources are there—yet we continue to subsidize destruction while underfunding regeneration. It is time to recognize that protecting nature is not a side strategy, it is the foundation of climate stability. I would urge them to redirect even a fraction of the trillions spent on fossil fuels toward safeguarding forests, wetlands, and biodiversity—and toward empowering the Indigenous and local communities who are their best stewards. And I would remind them that our task is not just to reduce emissions; it is to build a future that is livable, just, and full of opportunity for those who will inherit this planet. History will judge us not by what we intended, but by what we were brave enough to do. Jennifer Geerlings-Simons: The 100 Most Influential Climate Leaders of 2025 ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326534/jennifer-geerlings-simons/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326534/jennifer-geerlings-simons/"},"headline":"Jennifer Geerlings-Simons","datePublished":"2025-10-30T11:30:16.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T01:00:59.312Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326534/jennifer-geerlings-simons/","keywords":["TIME100 Climate 2025","list","franchise","Magazine","Special Project","sponsorshipblock","Accolades"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt71fbb3cbcd9bc2e2/6998cb05c8dcb417d9b50988/Leaders-Jennifer-Geerlings-Simons.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Esha Chhabra","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/esha-chhabra/"}],"creator":"Esha Chhabra","articleSection":"Climate","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt71fbb3cbcd9bc2e2/6998cb05c8dcb417d9b50988/Leaders-Jennifer-Geerlings-Simons.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/climate/","name":"Climate"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time100-climate-2025/","name":"TIME100 Climate 2025"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326534/jennifer-geerlings-simons/","name":"Jennifer Geerlings-Simons"}}]}] ```