Abigail Borah

Abigail Borah (born 1990) is an American climate activist. She is a member of the International Youth Climate Movement and a Student Delegate (2010/2011) for SustainUS—a nonprofit, nonpartisan, New York-based organization of young people who advance the cause of sustainable development and youth empowerment in the United States through proactive education, research and advocacy at policy-making and grassroots levels. She also co-founded Race to Replace Vermont Yankee—a statewide grassroots campaign to empower youth voters to replace Vermont's aging nuclear plant with a clean energy portfolio.

Borah was born in 1990. She grew up near Princeton, New Jersey, and went to the Catholic-affiliated Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart. Later, she attended Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, majoring in Conservation Biology in the Environmental Studies Department.

She made headlines in December 2011 when she rose to interrupt a session of the U.N.-sponsored international climate meeting known as COP-17 in Durban, South Africa, to confront U.S. special envoy Todd Stern for America's failure to lead. She said, "I am speaking on behalf of the United States of America because my negotiators cannot. The obstructionist Congress has shackled justice and delayed ambition for far too long. I am scared for my future. 2020 is too late to wait. We need an urgent path to a fair, ambitious and legally binding treaty." Several delegates and observers gave her a sustained ovation, but the authorities evicted her from the conference. At the time, Borah was a junior at Middlebury College.

Video: Abigail Borah COP17 SBSTA Intervention