Anna Rose

Rose was AYCC’s first national director, studying law while starting up the new organisation. After she returned from the United States, Amanda McKenzie and Rose shared the leadership of the organisation as Co-Directors.

Rose’s early work with the AYCC included setting up the organisational fundamentals, growing the membership, and representing the organisation in the media and at public events. For example, she spoke alongside the Dalai Lama at Perth’s Burswood Dome.

In 2012 Melbourne University Press published Rose’s book Madlands: A Journey to Change the Mind of a Climate Sceptic. The book is the story of Rose's efforts to change the mind of former Finance Minister Nick Minchin on the science of climate change.

Later in 2012, Rose also toured the book around Australia on the 'Madlands Book Tour'. The national tour was managed by later Young Environmentalist of the Year Isaac Astill, and visited over 50 towns and cities around Australia.

Rose left Make Believe in late 2011 to be part of the ABC Television documentary I Can Change Your Mind About... Climate, write her book, and pursue other climate change projects.

Rose was instrumental in two Australian Youth Climate Coalition projects in 2009. Power Shift, Australia’s first youth climate summit, brought together 1500 of the AYCC’s most active members together at the University of Western Sydney for three days of training and workshops in campaigning and grassroots organising. The final day culminated in a flash mob dance on the steps of the Sydney Opera House.

In December 2009 Rose helped lead a delegation of young Australians and Pacific islanders to the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen.

In 2009 Rose wrote a chapter on environment and sustainability for the book The Future, By Us published by Hardie Grant Books. Rose has published articles in The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, Vogue Australia and other publications.

In 2007 Rose went on exchange to Cornell Law School and while living in the United States represented young Australians at the Secretary General's Special Conference on Climate Change at the United Nations in New York on 24 September.

In 2006, Rose founded the Australian Youth Climate Coalition by bringing together representatives from all major Australian youth-run organisations in Melbourne for a three-day founding summit. There, the first steering committee of the AYCC was formed, comprising Simon Sheikh (who went on to become National Director of GetUp!), Amanda McKenzie (who went on to co-direct the AYCC with Rose), Nick Moraitis (who later founded strategy and communications consultancy Make Believe), Ben Margetts (who went on to work with Avaaz), Tom Dawkins (who went on to found StartSomeGood), and Michelle Yang.

Rose was elected Environment Officer of the Students Representative Council and was spokesperson for the organisation Sustainability at Sydney Uni. In 2005 and 2006 she helped to lead a student campaign for the University to take action to reduce carbon emissions. The campaign involved the first student referendum in 27 years. 90% of votes called on the University to switch from coal-fired to renewable electricity. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that in response, the University Vice-Chancellor agreed to invest $1 million in renewable energy research.

In 2004 Rose was elected an editor of Honi Soit, the weekly student newspaper. In 2005 Rose deferred her studies for a year upon election as National Environment Officer for the National Union of Students as a member of the Australian Student Environment Network. At the end of 2005 Rose was selected to attend the United Nations Kyoto Protocol climate change negotiations in Montreal.

Rose was born in Newcastle, NSW, and graduated from Merewether High School in 2001. She won a scholarship with Distinction to the University of Sydney and graduated in 2008 with degrees in Law (1st class honours) and Arts. During her studies, she was part of the Department of Geography’s South East Asian field school along the Mekong Delta, and in her final year she went on exchange to Cornell University in upstate New York. Rose received the Young Alumni Award for Achievement in 2009.

Anna Rose (born 14 April 1983) is an Australian author, activist and environmentalist . She co-founded the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) in late 2006 with Amanda McKenzie. In 2012 she co-starred in an ABC documentary, I Can Change Your Mind on Climate Change and released her first full-length book, Madlands: A Journey to Change the Mind of a Climate Sceptic. Rose currently sits on the Board of Directors of Farmers for Climate Action, a Governor of WWF-Australia, an advisory board member for Australian Geographic Society and is a former Myer Foundation Innovation Fellow.