Draft:Tomás Insua

Tomás Insua is a leader of Catholic movements for climate and nature, the founder of Laudato Si' Movement, and a recognized authority on the practice of Catholic teaching on ecology. Bill McKibben, author and founder of 350.org and Third Act, said "No one save Francis has done more to build a global Catholic consensus that the climate crisis is the moral question of our time."

During his youth in Argentina, Insua co-founded Potencialides, a service organization for young people living in poverty in Buenos Aires, and worked in marketing for Google. A trip to the Philippines in the wake of Typhoon Yolanda (also known as Typhoon Haiyan) convinced him of the link between environmental degradation and human well-being. The typhoon, which was likely made more powerful by climate change, is estimated to have killed between 7,000 and 30,000 people and to have displaced 4.1 million people.

Following this experience, Insua shifted career paths, supporting non-state engagement ahead of the Paris Climate Agreement and then joining Harvard's Kennedy School as a Fulbright Fellow. While at Harvard, Insua convened a group of leaders to co-found what was then known as the Global Catholic Climate Movement in order to prepare for the publication of Pope Francis's encyclical Laudato Si'. As its first campaign, the movement collected 900,000 signatures on a petition encouraging the negotiators of the Paris Climate Agreement to enshrine a limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming in the final text of the agreement. The petition was endorsed by Pope Francis before being delivered to the high-level officials who hosted the Paris Climate Agreement summit.

Under Insua's leadership as founding executive director, Global Catholic Climate Movement established a network of hundreds of member organizations and tens of thousands of grassroots volunteers, became the single-largest source of commitments to fossil fuel divestment in the world, established and led an ecumenical steering committee for the Season of Creation, developed and coordinated Laudato Si' Week, supported the Laudato Si' Action Platform, and developed a number of eco-spirituality initiatives, such as the Laudato Si' Retreat and the Contemplative Communities program.

Under this leadership, the organization developed national programs in the Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and Africa, achieving such milestones as launching a nation-wide Laudato Si' campaign in collaboration with the bishops of Brazil, supporting the bishops of Asia to call for responsible environmental stewardship, cooperating with the bishops of Europe in a continent-wide "Laudato Si' Reflection Day," and supporting the bishops of Africa in opposing a crude oil pipeline.

As an executive producer, Insua spearheaded development and production of "The Letter,"The Letter: A Message for our Earth a documentary film featuring Pope Francis and frontline leaders from around the world. The film has been seen 10 million times. Insua has spoken at Vatican press conferences, UN climate summits private audiences with Pope Francis, and other high-profile events.

In 2021, the Global Catholic Climate Movement changed its name to Laudato Si' Movement following official approval from Pope Francis.

In 2023, Insua announced that he would make a transition away from his position of Executive Director to pursue programs including the Season of Creation, fossil fuel reductions, and on-the-ground ecology projects. This work continues to be coordinated with Laudato Si' Movement and with the Laudato Si' Research Institute, Campion Hall, Oxford University.