Special message from Humanitarian of the Year

University of Wolverhampton graduate, Nathalie Flores, sent a special message to the University from COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan.

She won the Humanitarian of the Year award at the Alumni Awards ceremony which was held at the University's City Campus on 7 November, but despite planning to travel to attend from Madrid where she lives, she was called to an emergency meeting in Baku by the UN Climate Change Secretariat.

She was disappointed not to attend but extremely honoured and happy to have won the award.

Nathalie graduated in 2016 with a Master's degree in Environmental Management. She has committed her life to combating the greatest threat our planet currently faces, as the director responsible for technical negotiations related to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in the Dominican Republic.

After graduating from the University, Nathalie worked in the Dominican Republic for the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources and was soon leading in the areas of renewable energies and climate change negotiations.

Progressing rapidly, four years later she worked for the Secretariat of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations in New York City, before returning to become the Ministry’s director for climate change adaptation and mitigation.

She now helps the Dominican Republic's government to better use their resources to overcome the climate crisis, as well as being Vice-Chair of the United Nations’ climate change science and technology body, impacting climate change policy globally.