

Who we are
The Climate Diversity Foundation (CDF), is a regional expansion of the Multicultural Leadership Initiative, operating in Asia. CDF focuses on climate-adaptive mitigation efforts with diverse leaders across governments, communities, corporations, and investors by leading climate conversations that are socially, culturally, and linguistically inclusive.
Our mission
Our mission is to build and inspire diversity in climate leadership, foster agency, and create a social mandate for a climate-safe future for all.
Our approach
Moving everyday Asians is key to accelerating Asia’s pathway towards a climate safe future. This calls on us to reach beyond the usual suspects to accelerate the potential of Asia’s leadership globally on climate solutions. We’ve built a global organization led and staffed by the diverse leaders the climate movement has been trying to reach. Through our local and global knowledge we identify key change-partners, run advocacy and capacity building programs as well as deliver an incubation and acceleration regranting program. Through diversity, we leverage the power of key constituency groups through three main pillars: organised ideas, organised resources, and organised people.

Building diverse climate leadership
We are supporting constituencies identified as critical to shaping the climate solutions social mandate through:
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We are growing leadership across diverse constituency groups to create a robust social mandate for a climate-safe future for Asia. By developing strategic ecosystems among constituency groups and equipping people to advocate for climate solutions work, we are creating an interwoven layered climate narrative that shifts previously disengaged constituencies by reflecting their lived experience. In doing so, we are scaling up the climate solutions work to enable decision-makers in policy and industry to move towards an indivisible cross-partisan pro-climate agenda.
Climate solutions
In the history of change-making, Asia is also home to some of the most influential social movements and civil society leaders, who still influence global campaign methodology and changemaker strategies. To translate this history into the climate sphere, we are centering people on shaping climate solutions work that enhances the lifestyle relevance of everyday Asians. System change is critical to scale up climate solutions, but without growing leadership across various sectors, system change is slowed down. Identifying and growing leadership across Asia and various sectors becomes a main driver of accelerating a social mandate for climate solutions.

Our constituency groups are key to the success of climate solutions work and building a social mandate for it. Our extensive constituency-based campaigns aim to evolve our strategy, centering on local, regional, and global climate realities. The youth, Indigenous people, and women are the center of our work, but various communities that are critical to accelerating and scaling up the climate movement are our partners.
Our constituency groups
Our Direction of Travel in Asia


The mainstream climate solutions primarily highlight the role of big corporations and governments. This reality accelerates people's disengagement and skepticism about navigating their roles for a climate-safe future while greenwashing becomes a widely shared business practice.
Our journey in Asia reflects the unique condition of constituency groups in each market and strategizes the climate realities these groups experience. Therefore, diverse leadership from our constituency groups emerge and shape the climate solutions narrative.
We envision diverse leaders from constituency groups:
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Take an active role in climate governance, shaping safe and sustainable policies.
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Build and connect varied and inclusive climate movements for the social climate mandate.
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Being vital stewards for building climate solutions work
Where we operate

The Climate Diversity Foundation currently operates in the following areas:
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South Korea,
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Japan,
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China,
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Taiwan,
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Indonesia,
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Philippines,
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Papua New Guinea
A letter from our Asia Director
By making the climate conversation accessible to everyday Asians, we are centering our constituency groups on shaping the work of climate solutions that will lead to a climate-safe future for all.
Through my journey to tackle the climate crisis, I have observed that for too long, the discussion on climate solutions has largely dismissed individual people's roles and their power, even though the suffering from climate change has been very human. Such disengagement from people has led to a growing skepticism about climate change and its solution among the majority of people.
We believe it is a pivotal moment to grow and connect people to accelerate climate solutions across Asia and various sectors. We combine climate mitigation goals with adaptation realities to ensure people from all walks of life and the communities they are part of are able to thrive in the present as they strive for the future.
We invite you to be part of this journey with us.
Jude Lee

Contact us
Multicultural Leadership Initiative LTD is an Australian ACNC registered charity ABN: 68661886808. Multicultural Leadership Initiative Inc. is a registered US not-for-profit registered in the state of New York. Copyright 2023.