Michelle Bachelet, President of the Republic of Chile, was recognized in the Policy Leadership category for her outstanding leadership in creating marine protected areas and boosting renewable energy.
“Chile has shown the world that you don’t need to be a rich country to preserve the environment.,” said President Bachelet. “I feel honored to be included in this outstanding group of people and grateful for being acknowledged as one of this year’s Champions of the Earth, the UN’s highest environmental recognition.”
In October 2015, President Bachelet established 3 marine protected areas in Chile to conserve biodiversity. These include the marine park Nazca-Desventuradas in San Ambrosio and San Felix Islands, a range of protected areas and marine parks in the Juan Fernandez Islands and an extension of the protected areas in the Easter Island.
The total coverage is now over 1 million km2, making it the largest in the world. This initiative is aligned with the UN mission of protecting at least 10 per cent of the oceans by 2020.
Aside from marine environmental protection, her policies have helped to facilitate a nationwide transition to clean energy. In the four years leading up to 2017, renewable energy production surged from 6 to 17 per cent of Chile’s energy mix.
In June 2017, two new marine parks and a permanent assessment group on climate change were planned.
Dr Paul A. Newman & NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center won in the Science and Innovation category, for outstanding contributions to the Montreal Protocol – which has phased out 99 per cent of ozone-depleting substances and led to the healing of the ozone layer.
“Ozone is our unseen natural sunscreen,” said Dr. Newman, Chief Scientist of Atmospheric Sciences. “It’s crucial to understand and carefully watch this vital Earth resource."
The first satellite instrument to measure ozone was put into space by the Goddard center in 1970, and the first Antarctic ozone hole pictures were made using Goddard satellite data in 1985. Since the early 90s, the center has been instrumental in leading updates to the Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion, looking at how policies impact the atmosphere and setting a new high-water mark for international scientific cooperation.
The ozone layer is now healing and will return to 1980 levels by mid-century. As a result, up to 2 million cases of skin cancer may be prevented each year by 2030. The Kigali Amendment to the protocol, signed in 2016, is now targeting hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are climate-warming gases with significant global-warming potential. Action in this area can help avoid up to 0.5° Celsius in global warming by the end of the century.
Jeff Orlowski won in the Inspiration and Action Category for his work on spreading powerful environmental messages to a global audience. Orlowski is the founder of Exposure Labs, which uses the power of storytelling to create impact. In 2012, he directed the climate-focused documentary, Chasing Ice, which has been screened in over 172 countries, 70 universities, over 75 film festivals, the White House and the UN.
His film, Chasing Coral, looks at the effects of ocean warming and coral bleaching on these vulnerable ecosystems. The award-winning documentary is the result of 500+ hours underwater, the creative application of cutting-edge technology, submissions of footage from volunteers from 30 countries, and support from more than 500 people around the world. It won the Sundance US Documentary Audience Award.
Chasing Coral’s impact campaign is driven by a central mission to inspire a new wave of climate champions in unexpected places, calling on people to arrange screenings of the film and take action to protect coral reefs that are dying across the world.
“The collapse of our reefs is an early, yet urgent warning of the threat posed to all ecosystems,” said Orlowski. “I hope this award can help reveal this elusive story hidden in our ocean to the world.”
Visit www.ChasingCoral.com to learn more. Both films can be streamed on Netflix.
Saihanba Afforestation Community won in the Inspiration and Action category for transforming degraded land into a lush paradise.
Saihanba, which covers 92,000 hectares and borders the southern edge of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, had by the 1950s become barren due to excessive logging, allowing sand to blow into Beijing from the northern deserts. In 1962, hundreds of foresters began planting trees in the area.
Three generations of these foresters have increased forest cover from 11.4 to 80 per cent. The forest now supplies 137 million cubic meters of clean water to the Beijing and Tianjin areas each year, while discharging c. 550,000 metric tons of oxygen. It has spurred economic growth with green sectors, generating USD15.1 million in 2016 alone.
“In the 55 years the farm has existed, people have been growing trees and protecting the forest like their own children,” said Liu Haiying, director of Saihanba Afforestation Community. “I believe that, as long as we continue to promote ecological civilization, generation after generation, China can create more green miracles like Saihanba and achieve harmony between humans and nature.”
Wang Wenbiao, Chairman of Elion Resources Group, won a Lifetime Achievement award for a lifetime of leadership in green industry.
Better known in China as the “Son of the Desert”, Wang, 61, is the chairman of China’s largest private green industries enterprise, Elion Resources Group, with total assets of over USD 1.6 billion.
Wang bought the Hangjinqi Saltworks in the middle of the Kubuqi desert in 1988. He quickly realized that the saltworks’ financial woes, and the problems with livelihoods in the region, were down to the desert: sand interfering with production and making it difficult to transport products out.
He partnered with local communities and the Beijing government to combat desertification in the desert, which covers around 18,600 sq km in Inner Mongolia. Centuries of grazing had stripped the land, leaving around 70,000 people struggling to survive. Now around two-thirds of the desert has been greened and local communities have jobs and a more pleasant environment. UN Environment Programme research estimated the project has a net value of $1.8 billion dollars over 50 years.
The project shows how private industry can both turn a healthy profit and make a massive positive contribution to climate change, sustainable development and many other environmental issues.
“My only life goal is to combat desertification for a greener world, with more lush mountains with clear water, which I always value as silver and gold mountains,” Wang said.
In November 2007, Wang was elected as the Vice-Chairman of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, and in 2008 won the China Charity Award. In January 2012, he won the title of ‘Chinese Model Worker in Green Work’ for the second time.
Mobike won in the Entrepreneurial Vision category for exploring market-driven solutions to air pollution and climate change.
Mobike is the world’s largest smart bike-sharing company. After two years of operation, the platform claims over 100 million registered users across more than 100 cities globally, servicing over 20 million rides a day.
Air pollution is a massive problem, particularly in countries like China and India, claiming an estimated 6.5 million lives each year. Bike sharing is a crucial alternative to motorized transport, and companies like Mobike are leading the way in cutting out journeys that contribute to air pollution and climate change.
According to figures collated by the company, Mobike users have cycled more than 18.2 billion kilometres, avoiding 4.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to taking 1.24 million cars off the road for a year.
Every Mobike bike has a GPS tracker, and the company collects bikes that don’t move or are unused – although they are designed to be maintenance-free for four years. The company also has an incentive/disincentive scheme, giving bonus points for proper parking to encourage users to leave their bikes in designated areas.
Mobike has also teamed up with US chemical firm, Dow, to conduct research on creating more eco-friendly bikes after reports of unsustainable manufacturing practices.
“It is a tremendous honour to receive this award,” said Mobike’s Founder and President, Hu Weiwei. “Combating climate change, through [pursuing] the United Nations sustainable development goals, is one of the world’s most important priorities, and we commit to using our technology and innovation to help governments and businesses join us in creating a pedal-powered green economy.”
For her stalwart commitment to quantifying the effects of climate change and her tireless efforts to transform attitudes, Canadian climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe was chosen as the Champion of the Earth for science and innovation.
One of the world’s most influential communicators on climate change, Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist who studies what climate change means to people and the places where we live. She evaluates long-term observations, future scenarios and global models and develops innovative strategies that translate future projections into relevant, actionable information that stakeholders can use to inform future planning for food, water, infrastructure and more in a changing climate.
Hayhoe has served as a lead author for a number of key reports, including the US Global Change Research Program’s Second, Third and Fourth National Climate Assessments and the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s What We Know and How We Respond reports. She also serves on advisory committees for a broad range of organizations from the Smithsonian Natural History Museum to the Earth Science Women’s Network to the Young Evangelicals for Climate Action. She has received honorary doctorates from Colgate University and Victoria College at the University of Toronto.
However, Hayhoe may be best-known for bridging the broad, deep gap between scientists and Christians -- work she does because she is a Christian herself. While completing her undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto, she took a class in climate science that altered the trajectory of her life forever. Learning that climate change is a threat multiplier that affects nearly every aspect of life on this planet -- most critically poverty, hunger, injustice and humanitarian crises -- she abandoned her plans to become an astrophysicist and instead pursued a Masters and Ph.D. in atmospheric science at the University of Illinois in order to, as she says, give voice to the experiences of those suffering the impacts of a changing climate.
Her work in public engagement centers around what she sees as the single most important thing that everyone can do to fight climate change -- talk about it. She does so through many avenues, including hosting the PBS digital YouTube series, Global Weirding: Climate, Politics and Religion; co-authoring a book on climate and Christian values with her husband Andrew Farley, a pastor, author and radio host; participating in hundreds of interviews, talks, podcasts, documentaries, classes and more across the US and beyond each year; actively engaging with the public via social media and online forums; and, most recently, authoring an upcoming book on how to talk about climate change.
As a result, she has been named by Christianity Today as one of their 50 Women to Watch, one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in 2014, FORTUNE’s 50 greatest world leaders and listed among Foreign Policy’s 100 Global Thinkers, twice, in 2014 and again in 2019. She has also received a host of awards including the American Geophysical Union’s Climate Communication Award, the Sierra Club’s Distinguished Service Award and the Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication.
While grateful for the public recognition that awards convey, Hayhoe says the most important element of her work is changing minds.
“What means the most to me personally is when just one person tells me sincerely that they had never cared about climate change before, or even thought that it was real: but now, because of something they heard me say, they’ve changed their mind. That’s what makes it all worthwhile,” she wrote on her website.
Champions of the Earth is the United Nations’ flagship global environmental award. It was established by the UN Environment Programme in 2005 to celebrate outstanding figures whose actions have had a transformative positive impact on the environment. From world leaders to environmental defenders and technology inventors, the awards recognize trailblazers who are working to protect our planet for the next generation.
Previous winners of the Champions of the Earth award in the science and innovation category include Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat in 2018 for producing a sustainable alternative to beef burgers, Australian designer Leyla Acaroglu in 2016 for her work on sustainability and leading atmospheric chemist Sir Robert Watson in 2014.
For turning the green good deeds of half a billion people into green trees planted in some of China’s most arid regions, Ant Forest mini-programme has been awarded Champion of the Earth for inspiration and action.
Launched by Ant Financial Services Group, an Alibaba affiliate, Ant Forest promotes greener lifestyles by inspiring users to reduce carbon emissions in their daily lives. When they do, Ant Forest rewards them with ‘green energy’ points, which can be used to plant a real tree.
The aim is to combat desertification, lower air pollution and protect the environment.
Ant Forest users are encouraged to record their low-carbon footprint through daily actions like taking public transport or paying utility bills online. For each action, they receive ‘green energy’ points and when they accumulate a certain number of points, an actual tree is planted. Users can view images of their trees in real-time via satellite.
The Ant Forest platform is also exploring innovative solutions to alleviate poverty and improve the lives of local people by leveraging the power of digital technology.
Since its launch in August 2016, Ant Forest and its NGO partners have planted around 122 million trees in some of China’s driest areas, including in desert regions in Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Qinghai and Shanxi. The trees cover an area of 112,000 hectares (1.68 million mu) and the project has become China’s largest private sector tree-planting initiative.
Business units across Alibaba are also encouraging users to take part in Ant Forest. For example, if they use the second-hand trading platform Idle Fish to recycle old items, they can earn ‘green energy’ points.
Ant Forest’s recognition as a Champion of the Earth highlights the importance of ecosystem restoration in reducing the emissions fuelling climate change. In March 2019, the United Nations underlined the urgent need to protect the natural systems that sustain life by declaring the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration from 2021-2030.
China has long been committed to reforestation to improve its environment and tackle climate change. Authorities aim to increase the area of land covered by forests from 21.7 per cent in 2016 to 23 per cent by 2020. Since 1978, the country has been building a 4,500-kilometre Green Great Wall, also known as the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program, along the edges of its northern deserts to hold back the expanding Gobi desert and prevent soil erosion and land degradation.
Champions of the Earth is the United Nations’ flagship global environmental award. It was established by the UN Environment Programme in 2005 to celebrate outstanding figures whose actions have had a transformative positive impact on the environment. From world leaders to environmental defenders and technology inventors, the awards recognize trailblazers who are working to protect our planet for the next generation.
The awards have recognized innovations and change-makers, particularly in the field of renewable energy.
In 2018, the Zhejiang Green Rural Revival Programme won the award for inspiration and action for its work to regenerate polluted waterways and damaged lands; also in 2018, Cochin International Airport, the world’s first solar power airport, won the award for entrepreneurial vision; and in 2017, the Saihanba Afforestation Community was recognized in the inspiration and action category for transforming degraded land on the southern edge of Inner Mongolia into a lush paradise.
A celebrated world leader in sustainability, Costa Rica has been chosen as Champion of the Earth for policy leadership because of its pioneering role in the protection of nature and its commitment to ambitious policies to combat climate change.
Notably, the Central American nation has drafted a detailed plan to decarbonize its economy by 2050, in line with the Paris Climate Agreement and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. It hopes to provide a template for other nations to do the same and curb the deadly emissions causing rapid, disastrous climate change.
“The decarbonization plan consists of maintaining an upward curve in terms of economic employment growth, and at the same time generating a downward curve in the use of fossil fuels in order to stop polluting. How are we going to achieve that? Through clean public transport, smart and resilient cities, sound waste management, sustainable agriculture and improved logistics,” said President Carlos Alvarado Quesada.
The plan includes bold mid- and long-term targets to reform transport, energy, waste and land use. The aim is to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, meaning the country will produce no more emissions than it can offset through actions such as maintaining and expanding its forests.
Costa Rica’s success in placing environmental concerns at the heart of its political and economic policies shows that sustainability is both achievable and economically viable. Officials say Costa Rica aims to change the paradigm of development, envisioning a consumption and production system that generates an environmental surplus rather than a deficit.
“In 2050, although it seems very distant, I hope I can tell my son, who is six years old now, and by then will be my age, that we did the right thing, we did what had to be done so that he could live in a better world, mainly because we tackled the effects of climate change,” President Alvarado Quesada said.
Costa Rica’s environmental credentials are impressive: more than 95 per cent of its energy is renewable, forest cover stands at more than 50 per cent after painstaking work to reverse decades of deforestation and around half of the country’s land is under some degree of protection.
In 2017, the country ran for a record 300 days solely on renewable power. The aim is to achieve 100 per cent renewable electricity by 2030. Seventy per cent of all buses and taxis are expected to be electric by 2030, with full electrification projected for 2050.
Costa Rica’s groundbreaking role in promoting clean technologies and sustainability is all the more remarkable for the fact that the country of around 5 million people produces only 0.4 per cent of global emissions.
The Champion of the Earth award recognizes Costa Rica’s sustainability credentials and also spotlights the urgent need to find solutions to climate change. Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require unprecedented changes to reduce carbon emissions by 45 per cent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching net zero around 2050.
Champions of the Earth is the United Nations’ flagship global environmental award. It was established by the UN Environment Programme in 2005 to celebrate outstanding figures whose actions have had a transformative positive impact on the environment. From world leaders to environmental defenders and technology inventors, the awards recognize trailblazers who are working to protect our planet for the next generation.
Previous laureates from the region include Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile, for her outstanding leadership in creating marine protected areas and for boosting renewable energy (2017), former Brazilian environment minister Izabella Teixeira for her visionary leadership and key role in reversing deforestation of the Amazon (2013) and Mexican ecologist José Sarukhán Kermez for a lifetime of leadership and innovation in the conservation of biodiversity in Mexico and around the world (2016).
In 2010, Costa Rica was awarded the Future Policy Award by the World Future Council in recognition of its 1998 biodiversity law, which was held up as a model for other nations to follow.
Fridays for Future is a dynamic global student movement pushing for immediate action on climate change through active campaigning and advocacy. It was chosen as Champion of the Earth for inspiration and action because of its role in highlighting the devastating effects of climate change.
Fridays for Future has millions of passionate activists who insist that their voices be heard on what many see as the defining issue of their generation. The movement was inspired by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, who sat in protest in front of the Swedish parliament for three weeks last year to draw attention to the climate emergency.
Now every month, students around the world take to the streets to demand that politicians do more to acknowledge and act upon the reality and severity of climate change. These regular marches have attracted more than one million young people in more than 100 countries. As Thunberg says: “Everybody is welcome. Everybody is needed”.
The Fridays for Future movement has electrified the global conversation about climate change at a time when the window of opportunity to avoid the worst effects of rising temperatures is closing. Global emissions are reaching record levels and show no sign of peaking. Sea levels are rising, coral reefs are dying and extreme weather events are becoming more common and more destructive around the world.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has said he understands the anger of the youth and that their voices give him hope for the future.
In June, Thunberg and the Fridays for Future movement were honoured with Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience award, which celebrates people who have shown unique leadership and courage in standing up for human rights.
The passion and energy displayed by the members of the Fridays for Future movement offer hope that global leaders can be persuaded to act to reduce carbon emissions within 12 years and hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C and even, as asked by the latest science, to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
Champions of the Earth is the United Nations’ flagship global environmental award. It was established by the UN Environment Programme in 2005 to celebrate outstanding figures whose actions have had a transformative positive impact on the environment. From world leaders to environmental defenders and technology inventors, the awards recognize trailblazers who are working to protect our planet for the next generation.
Previous winners of the Champions of the Earth award for inspiration and action include Afroz Shah, an Indian lawyer who organized the world’s biggest beach clean-up project in Mumbai (2016); the Black Mamba Anti-Poaching Unit from South Africa (2015); and Martha Isabel Ruiz Corzo, a community-based conservation activist from Mexico (2013).
