President William Ruto has been called by Time Magazine one of the world’s 100 most influential leaders shaping global climate action.

The listing comes in the week he led a national holiday aimed at planting 100 million trees in a single day.

President Ruto was named alongside the mayor of Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr.

Burkinabé-German architect Francis Kéré and Ethiopian climate entrepreneur Kidus Asfaw also made the Time list.

The ranking, known as “Time 100 Climate”, was released on Thursday, and is the magazine’s inaugural attempt to name those it sees as significant in highlighting and doing something about the issue of climate change across the globe.

Time said it selected those listed for “making significant progress in fighting climate change by creating business value”.

The magazine also said that the honourees were chosen because their efforts in fighting climate change were recent and produced “measurable, scalable achievements” rather than “commitments and announcements”.

President Ruto has been vocal in trying to deal with the impact of climate change in Kenya and Africa.

The tree-planting holiday held on 13 November was part of his larger ambition for Kenya to plant 15 billion trees in 10 years.