Maria Jose Rodriguez Palomeque is a 19-year-old activist for human rights, climate change, and gender justice. She is a member of Amnesty International and part of the Youth Advisory Council for World Ocean Day. She is also an ambassador of the European Climate Pact, young champion for the UN refugee agency, and the advocacy lead for the environment and gender platform, EmpoderaClima. During the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in 2023 (COP28), she was a negotiator and official delegate of Mexico at the age of 18, on the topic of adaptation. In seeking to ensure that women from Latin America and the Caribbean are present in the international climate conversation, she founded EduHer, the first free educational platform with a gender perspective in the region on environmental issues. For her work on gender and the environment, she was recognized as one of the most influential leaders in the world by the UNDP "In Our LiFETIME" campaign and the WOW Foundation's Directory.