We last featured OJ Mikaela Loach (Martlet - 2016) back in November 2020 when she was interviewed by the BBC about her work on battling the climate crisis and anti-racism.

Since then, she has gone from strength to strength, attending the COP27 earlier this month where she took part in the panel ‘Youth: from resistance to power’, all the panelists being radical youth climate justice organisers from all over the world. The BBC Today programme picked up on this and featured her on the Today programme on 10th November.

Mikaela is currently in her fourth year as a medical student at the University of Edinburgh and uses her Instagram platform @mikaelaloach to work towards making the climate movement more inclusive, focusing on the intersections of the climate crisis with human rights issues such as white supremacy and maltreatment of migrants. Alongside Jo Becker, she is the co-producer, writer and presenter of the YIKES podcast which explores climate change, human rights and social justice.

Mikaela has been working on #StopJackdaw, a call to prevent the UK government from pushing a huge gas field in the North Sea. However, the UK government has just approved this project and Mikaela’s focus has now moved to #StopRosebank, the biggest undeveloped oil and gas field in the North Sea. An application has been submitted for UK government approval to start developing this field.

These campaigns follow the successful #StopCambo movement, which saw energy giant Shell dropping out of a project to develop the Cambo oil field which had the capacity to produce around 50,00 barrels of oil per day.