Greenpeace Southeast Asia has announced new leadership following the resignation of executive director Naderev “Yeb” Saño in December.
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Taking over the top post for the environmental watchdog in the region is Jasper Inventor, who will become acting executive director when Saño officially vacates the role on 31 January.
“My journey at Greenpeace Southeast Asia was meant to be. I believe I have poured my heart and soul into this organisation. It is therefore with mixed feelings, but with much gratitude, that I announce that I am stepping down…,” Saño wrote in an internal memo on 2 December.
“In my mind, the purpose of my job was to inspire, to make people feel that hunger in the centre of the chest, lead you through thick or thin, and rally more people and communities, to take action for transformative change. I took on this purpose with conviction and heart.”
Inventor moves up from his position as deputy international programme director for Greenpeace International. He was Greenpeace Southeast Asia’s programme director for nine years prior to that. He is also board chair of international climate and energy policy group Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities.
At COP29, Inventor was head of the Greenpeace delegation where he called the new climate finance deal “woefully inadequate” and said “reckless nature destroyers” were being protected by “every government’s low climate ambition”.
Inventor will take on the role left by Saño, a high-profile climate activist, whose defining moment was when was he served as the Philippines’ lead negotiator and its climate change commissioner at COP19 in Warsaw, Poland, which was happening at the same time that Typhoon Haiyan tore apart communities in Tacloban in 2013.
He told representatives of the 195 countries at the opening ceremony that he would fast for the duration of the two-week negotiations until meaningful pledges were made on climate finance, and a loss and damage mechanism agreed upon.
His emotional speech calling for action on climate change received an unprecedented standing ovation at the opening ceremony.
Saño’s actions in part led to the establishment of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage at the end of the conference.
The veteran climate activist refused to disclose the reasons for his resignation, but told Eco-Business he is taking the time to rest and is “looking forward to rejoining the various climate movement spaces.”
