Sherry Rehman among TIME's 100 most influential people of 2023

Minister for Climate Change Senator Sherry Rehman has been named among the ‘100 Most Influential People of 2023’ by TIME — a global media brand.

The unranked list, unveiled today, has chosen the "influential people" under six categories — artists, icons, pioneers, leaders, titans, and innovators.

Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s state secretary and special envoy for international climate action, wrote Rehman's profile for TIME’s 100 most influential people issue, lavishing praises on the minister for her efforts during cataclysmic floods that hit Pakistan in June last year.

The author recalled that there are many terrible sides to the climate crisis, but one of the most distressing is that it is hitting hardest those countries that are least responsible for it.

She mentioned that Pakistan is responsible for only a fraction of global emissions, but the climate crisis led to more than a third of the country being flooded last year.

“The water had not yet fully receded when Sherry Rehman arrived in Egypt for COP27, the UN climate summit, in November,” she noted, adding that there, as Pakistan’s Minister for Climate Change, she gave a voice to those who had lost everything to the floods.

Lavishing praises on the Pakistani minister, Morgan wrote: “Through impassioned speeches and tireless engagement in negotiations, she convinced many of the delegates that the blatant injustice must come to an end.

“COP27 ended with a historic decision — the world community agreed for the first time to establish new loss and damage funding arrangements to support the most vulnerable countries.”

The American German activist highlighted that this was a big step toward climate justice, “but we still have a long way to go.”

“We will need more people like Sherry Rehman along the way,” Morgan concluded.

The TIME list also included names of Janet Yellen, Joe Biden, Bella Hadid, among several others.

In December last year, Rehman was named among the "25 Most Influential Women of 2022" announced by the UK's newspaper Financial Times.