Benjamin
Van Bunderen Robberechts
Founder of Climate Justice for Rosa
Benjamin is a 19-year-old climate and children’s rights activist from Belgium. After his friend Rosa lost her life in the 2021 European floods, he initiated Climate Justice for Rosa and invited Rosa’s friends to join. Together, they built an international youth-led movement for recognition, accountability and action.
Today, much of his work is about bringing people affected by the climate crisis into direct conversation with those making decisions.
The story behind the work
From loss to action
Benjamin first became involved in climate activism at the age of 11, when he joined the school climate strikes. Three years later, the climate crisis changed his life.
Benjamin met Rosa at a summer camp. They were both activists and bonded over their shared commitment to making the world fairer. In July 2021, while they were at camp, catastrophic floods struck Belgium, Germany and neighbouring countries. Rosa lost her life at the age of 15. Benjamin was 14.
In the months that followed, Benjamin initiated Climate Justice for Rosa and invited Rosa’s friends to join. What began with their determination to ensure that Rosa would not be forgotten grew into a youth-led organisation confronting the human consequences of the climate crisis.
Benjamin began campaigning for official recognition of climate victims. He was repeatedly told that connecting Rosa’s death to the climate crisis was too political. He continued, meeting policymakers one by one and insisting that the people losing their lives could no longer remain invisible.
That campaign helped secure the official recognition of 15 July by both the European Union and Belgium as the Day for the Victims of the Global Climate Crisis.
The work today
Making room for lived experience
People affected by the climate crisis understand what their communities are facing and what they need. They should help shape the decisions intended to protect them.
Benjamin tries to use the access he has built to create direct conversations between affected young people and policymakers. This includes young people from communities in the Global South who are already living with severe climate impacts.
Since 2022, Benjamin has represented Climate Justice for Rosa as part of the Belgian delegation at four UN Climate Change Conferences and three rounds of negotiations in Bonn. Climate Justice for Rosa is also an official observer to the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee on the Environment.
Across this work, he focuses on climate justice, children’s rights and the responsibility of today’s decision-makers towards younger and future generations.
Other work and experience
Alongside Climate Justice for Rosa
Benjamin works as Climate Adviser to the Child Rights International Network. From 2019 to 2024, he was a youth adviser to the Flemish Children’s Rights Commissioner. He is also an EU Climate Pact Ambassador and sits on Debateville’s Board of Advisors.
He is one of the complainants in TotalCriminal, the criminal climate case against TotalEnergies. These different roles are connected by the same questions: who is protected, who is listened to and who is held responsible when harm could have been prevented?
Speaking and media
Bring the human reality of the climate crisis into the room.
Benjamin speaks at schools, universities, conferences, public institutions and civil-society events. His talks connect Rosa’s story with the wider questions it raises about political responsibility, children’s rights, climate justice and the choices that can still protect lives.
He also speaks about what he has learned from youth-led campaigning, climate negotiations and trying to influence institutions as a young person.
Contributions can take the form of a keynote, panel discussion, interview, lecture or conversation.
What remains at the centre
Rosa remains at the heart of the work.
Benjamin cannot change what happened in July 2021. He wants the memory of Rosa, and of others lost to the climate crisis, to lead to decisions that protect those who are still here.