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SINGAPORE—Seven
leaders in the battle against global warming and a
transition to a greener economy were honored on Tuesday
as the 2008 Champions of the Earth.
The
winners, ranging from Prince Albert II of Monaco and the
Prime Minister of New Zealand to a Sudanese climate
researcher who has been successfully piloting
climate-proofing strategies in some of the most stressed
communities on Earth, received their trophies at a gala
event here in Singapore simultaneously with the UN
Environment Program’s (Unep) Business for the
Environment Global Summit.
Besides
Prince Albert II of Monaco, this year’s environmental
achievers were former US senator Timothy Wirth and New
Zealand’s Prime Minister Helen Clark; Balgis
Osman-Elasha, a senior researcher at Sudan’s Higher
Council for Environment and Natural Resources; Atiq
Rahman, the executive director of the Bangladesh Centre
for Advanced Studies; Liz Thompson, the former Energy
and Environment minister of Barbados; and Abdul-Qader
Ba-Jammal, the secretary-general of the Yemen People’s
General Congress.
All the
winners have spearheaded outstanding initiatives in many
different areas, from environmental policy to
cutting-edge research, with a particular focus on
sustainable development and the fight against climate
change.
Achim
Steiner, UN undersecretary general and executive
director of the Unep who presented the awards, said,
“The golden thread that links each one of tonight’s
winners is climate change, the challenge for this
generation and the disaster for the next unless it is
urgently addressed.”
“Our
winners for 2008 light an alternative path for humanity
by taking responsibility, demonstrating leadership and
realizing change across a wide range of sustainability
issues. These include more intelligent and creative
management of natural and nature-based resources from
waste and water to biodiversity and agriculture,” he
added.
No
monetary reward is attached to the prize. Each laureate
receives a trophy made of recycled metal especially
designed by the Kenyan sculptor Kioko and representing
the fundamental elements for life on earth: sun, air,
land and water.
In
thanking Unep for the prize, Prince Albert II pledged to
“carry out missions to raise the alarm and heighten
awareness in the field. The world is facing an
unprecedented threat. We must assume our
responsibilities without delay and rise to the challenge
that history has placed upon our path.”
Dr.
Balgis Osman-Elasha said: “I am trying to convey the
message of climate change, to simplify the message, to
make it reach the people who are going to be impacted.”
The Sudanese researcher has worked on a range of
research projects in her native Sudan, including Darfur,
demonstrating to vulnerable communities the feasibility
of adapting to climate change and extreme weather
events.
Also one
of the leading authors in the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change report, which won last year the Nobel
Peace Prize along with former US vice president Al Gore,
Dr. Osman-Elasha added: “To be awarded the Champions of
Earth is an honor. It gives you the feeling and the
power to do more, and I think the proudest moment is yet
to come. We have no other planet—there is only one
Earth: this is the message!”
Champions of the Earth is an international environment
award established in 2004 by Unep.
Last
year former Philippine environment secretary Elisea
Gozun was one of the awardees for “pushing forward the
environmental agenda in the Philippines by winning the
trust of business leaders, nongovernmental organizations
and political decision-makers alike.”
Past
winners also include, among other, Gore; Massoudeh
Ebtekar, the former Vice President of Iran; former
President Mikhail Gorbachev of the Russian Federation;
Prince Hassan Bin Talal of Jordan; and Jacques Rogge and
the International Olympic Committee.
“Thus,
each one is a living proof that the greening of the
global economy is under way and that a transition to a
more resource-efficient society not only makes
environmental sense but social and economic sense, too.
I am sure their leadership and their achievements will
inspire many others to act as it inspired us at Unep to
name them the 2008 Champions of the Earth,” said
Steiner. |
