Irfaan Ali is the centrist president of Guyana and leader of the People's Progressive Party (PPP). He won a second term in the September 2025 election, with the PPP securing 36 of 65 legislative seats. In his re-inauguration speech he said his second term would be the "most consequential" period in Guyana's history. He presides over a country whose GDP has quintupled in five years thanks to oil discoveries off the Atlantic coast.
At the COP30 conference in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025, Ali pitched the forested nation as a climate leader, with a vague promise to spend its oil bonanza on climate-change adaptation.
It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations.