The climate campaigner Naomi Klein will address the Labour party conference this year as its international guest speaker, a slot previously given to prominent international politicians including Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton and the then Afghan president Hamid Karzai.
Klein, an award-winning journalist whose works include This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate, will also address the grassroots festival The World Transformed (TWT), which is organised by Momentum.
The Canadian writer was one of Jeremy Corbyn’s earliest international supporters, praising the Labour election campaign as a “bold, transformative platform which has the power to reshape the political map”.
Klein said she was “greatly looking forward to participating in the Labour conference where British voters will see for themselves that forming a Labour government rooted in that hopeful and urgent vision is not only possible, it’s a moral imperative”.
She will be introduced onstage in Brighton on Tuesday by the shadow international development secretary, Kate Osamor, who said Klein had “courage, ambition and solutions in spades”.
“She has dedicated her career to tackling the root causes of climate change, inequality and poverty, and has inspired a generation to see the world differently and to work together for change.”
Corbyn said he was delighted Klein had agreed to attend the main conference. “Naomi is an internationally renowned author and campaigner, who has been at the forefront of championing equality, social justice and action on climate change,” he said.
“I look forward to hearing her insights into the upheavals in global politics and how we can make common cause to tackle the challenges of our times and build societies in the interests of the many, not the few.”
After her speech in the conference hall, Klein will speak on a panel with Corbyn and the shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, at TWT festival, along with Asad Rehamn, director of War on Want, the spoken word artist Shareefa Grassroots, and leftwing Greek politician Zoe Konstantopoulou, the former speaker of the Hellenic parliament.
