During Al Gore’s 16-year career in the U.S. Congress and his eight-year term as Vice-President, he has made protecting the environment a pillar of his public service. He led Congressional efforts to clean up toxic dumps leading to the formation of the Superfund and held the first hearing on global climate change. In conjunction with his numerous trips around the world to visit those habitats most threatened by human intervention and climate change, he worked to educate fellow members of Congress and the American public on the dangers posed by rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations as well political inaction in the face of a growing environmental crisis.
Mr. Gore and President William Clinton expended great efforts to protect habitat across the United States and expand terrestrial and aquatic national parks and wildlife refuges. He also helped in the negotiating and drafting of the Kyoto Protocol aimed at cutting emissions of greenhouse gases.
Since the conclusion of his public service he has continued his committed efforts on behalf of the environment. His critically-acclaimed documentary An Inconvenient Truth – based on his presentation on climate change and which he has shown more than 1,000 times across the world – has become the third-highest grossing documentary in the history of the United States. Mr. Gore continues to incorporate his passion for the environment into his professional career, where he serves as Chairman of an investment management firm whose strategy incorporates sustainability in its investment research.
Throughout his 30-year career, as a politician, author, statesman and entrepreneur, he has made, and continues to make, critical contributions to the protection of the environment.
H. E. Ms. Marina Silva has been a tireless fighter for the protection of the Amazon rainforest. Her work has championed conservation while taking into account the perspectives of people who use the resources in their daily lives. In this respect, she is a champion of the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity, which promotes conservation, sustainable use and equitable sharing of the benefits of biodiversity.
Ms. Silva has recognised that, in protecting the environment, building a coalition of support demands adherence to a core set of values. Her belief that the success of the fight to save life on Earth demands that principles are at the forefront of our efforts has made her a deserving recipient of the 2007 Champions of the Earth award.
As a member of Brazil’s senate, she has successfully legislated rainforest preservation, defended her people against poverty and protected their way of life. As the Brazilian Minister of the Environment since 2003, her contribution to preserving the biologically diverse, complex and rich Brazilian Amazon is remarkable, with deforestation estimated to have decreased by more than 50 per cent in the last two years – a result undoubtedly linked to a new government process implemented by her and fundamentally based on the idea of a cross-cutting approach to environmental issues in all governmental and non-governmental sectors.
As President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Mr. Jacques Rogge has played an important role in the development of the sport and environment agenda. The changes he has brought to the organization have reinforced the importance of the environment in the work of the Olympic Movement.
Mr. Rogge has perpetuated a policy that seeks to provide greater resources to sustainable development in and through sport at national, regional and international levels, and particularly at the Olympic Games. This policy enshrined in The Olympic Charter is an important development as it strives to promote Olympic Games which respect the environment and meet the standards of sustainable development. Furthermore, it aims to promote awareness among and educate the members of the Olympic family and sports practitioners in general of the importance of a healthy environment for sustainable development.
Since taking the helm of the IOC in July 2001, Mr. Rogge has introduced stringent environmental requirements for cities bidding to host Olympic Games. As a result of these measures, no bid is considered without a comprehensive environmental programme. He has played an active and personal role in encouraging organizers of Olympic Games (Turin 2006 and Beijing 2008 in particular) to fulfil their environmental pledges and commitments. Under his Presidency, the Torino Games were widely hailed as the greenest games and considered innovative and a model for future “green” games.
In addition, Mr. Rogge has endorsed the continuation of the IOC biennial World Conference for Sport and Environment and regional seminars for sport and environment. Under his leadership, the World Conference has become one of the most recognizable events on sport and the environment and continues to draw stakeholders from all sectors of the sporting world to discuss their role and contributions to sustainable development.
It is difficult enough to be an environmentalist in nations where peace prevails, struggling in the face of business interests and systems based upon outmoded ways of thinking. To do so in nations riven by conflict, where speaking out can lead to threats and, in extreme cases, death, requires a whole new level of courage. Fatima Jibrell is one such individual who has put aside personal risk to stand up for what she believes in.
Jibrell is one of Somalia’s leading environmental activists and the founder of Adeso—a non-profit organization established in 1991 in response to the outbreak of a devastating civil war that created a humanitarian crisis and sparked decades of instability and chaos.
She is driven by the belief that community-led change is the key route to a more prosperous, peaceful, and environmentally sound future. With Jibrell at its helm, Adeso has mobilized local and international resources to protect Somalia’s pastoral way of life and fragile environment, upon which so many livelihoods depend.
In particular, Jibrell has fought tirelessly against the illegal charcoal trade, which has decimated ancient acacia trees in Somalia. Ordinary Somalis are often not aware of the long-term consequences of deforestation and desertification brought by the trade in this inexpensive fuel, and Jibrell has dedicated near twenty years of her life to educating her country on the importance of conserving what remains of the acacia population.
Jibrell has displayed fierce commitment and determination to organize marches, produce educational videos, and lobby politicians to end the destructive trade. She was instrumental in bringing about a ban on the export of charcoal in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region, and thus drastically reducing the charcoal trade. She also tackled local demand—co-funding Sun Fire Cooking, which promotes widespread use of solar cookers as an alternative to charcoal.
Her efforts to build peace, advocate better environmental practices and protect the livelihoods of Somalia’s pastoralists were recognized in 2002 when she was awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize. In 2007, she was awarded the National Geographic/Buffet Award for Leadership in African Conservation.
Jibrell is an outstanding example of the power of the individual to bring about change, harnessing her beliefs and energy into inspiring entire communities and nations to set aside short-term gain and create the possibility of a brighter future for generations to come.
Russian scientist Dr. Olga Speranskaya has been garnering headlines worldwide for her work to reduce the harmful impact of toxic chemicals in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Many former Soviet countries are home to vast stockpiles of highly toxic obsolete pesticides. Exposure to such pollutants can seriously damage human health and the environment.
Dr. Speranskaya formed a civil society network that has grown to include NGO groups, governmental bodies and academics. Its aim is to work on phasing out obsolete pesticides and other chemicals. The campaign succeeded in pushing national governments to ratify the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, which aims to eliminate the release of such products into the environment. Nine of twelve countries in the region ratified the Convention and now participate as full Parties at its global meetings. She has also led campaigns to ban the burial and transport of hazardous chemicals.
As co-chair of the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN), Dr. Speranskaya has helped NGOs implement more than 70 projects on toxic chemicals in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. The NGOs have identified contaminated hotspots, analyzed the health impacts of POPs, developed proposals for mitigating these poisonous chemicals, and coordinated public participation in the identification of unauthorized storage and use of banned and obsolete chemicals.
“It feels great to be recognized by UNEP as a Champion of the Earth, said Dr. Speranskaya “It demonstrates how important the work that we do is and how people all over the world really recognize that chemical safety is a great challenge and one of the major problems that we now face.”
A voice loved by thousands of fans around the world, singer-songwriter Angélique Kidjo is also a powerful voice for humanitarian and environmental change. Described by Time Magazine as "Africa's premier diva", Benin-born Kidjo uses her celebrity status to speak out in support of a number of important causes, particularly girls’ education and sustainable development.
Kidjo established The Batonga Foundation in 2009, which provides scholarships, school supplies and mentoring programmes and raises community awareness of the value of education for girls in Africa.
Kidjo was raised in both the voodoo tradition and Catholic faith, and speaks of how her childhood taught her respect for nature. As part of her advocacy work on the environment and sustainable development, Kidjo recorded a video for UNEP’s ‘Seal the Deal’ campaign, encouraging world leaders to produce a binding agreement on cutting carbon emissions and tackling climate change.
In 2010, Kidjo was appointed as a Patron for the UN Music & Environment Initiative. Led by the UNEP in collaboration with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and other partners, the initiative aims to leverage the power of music to address some of the most pressing environmental problems facing the planet.
“Any time I can spare from my family, my music, to go around the world and work with different kinds of people, that are struggling everyday to make their lives better and other peoples better, I will do so, because otherwise why am I here?” says Kidjo.
“My life will be useless, if I do not share my talent, my skill and my spirit. I’m not made to live alone, I’m made to live with other people on this planet.”
A legendary venture capitalist and the co-founder of Sun Microsystems, Vinod Khosla has been dubbed Silicon Valley’s ‘Mr. Green’. In September 2009, Khosla’s venture capital firm, Khosla Ventures, announced it had raised US$1.1 billion in a “green fund” that would be used to spur development of renewable energy and other clean technologies.
The fund came at a time when venture capital investments in green technology were just beginning to recover from a precipitous fall prompted by the global economic collapse in 2008. Of the US$1.1 billion, US$800 million will place investments in more established technologies while US$275 million will be used to make smaller investments in earlier stage technology companies. At the time of its announcement, the fund was the largest launched since 2007 and one of the largest ever launched for clean technologies.
Mr. Khosla has begun several environmental start-ups to try to reduce the world’s dependence on petroleum. He says the burgeoning revolution in oil alternatives will be bigger -- far bigger – than the internet revolution of yesteryear.
In his personal life, Khosla is carbon-neutral. He offsets his own carbon emissions with TerraPass.com and Carbonfund.org, and says he will soon be carbon-negative.
In January 2010, Bill Gates announced he has invested in Khosla’s green technology fund. When asked about Khosla, Gates said: “He is backing some great entrepreneurs. I get some exposure to them as part of that. Innovation is called for in a big way.”
Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo has gained international recognition for his position on environmental issues within his country and on the global scale.
As the President of a country with 40 million acres of untouched rainforest, Mr. Jagdeo worked on inviting donors and investors to pay for the protection of the forests through the sale of carbon credits, or investments in eco-tourism and pharmaceutical discoveries. With the money he hoped to generate from this trade, President Jagdeo planned to improve the country’s coastal infrastructure to protect it from the potential rise in sea levels.
He proposed that the UN Reduced Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) program adopts Guyana’s model on forest management and has encouraged the rest of the world to live in a way “where protecting forests is more economically prudent than cutting them down”.
He served as Guyana’s Prime Minister and Minister of Finance prior to winning the presidency in 2001 and 2006.
Despite progress in recent years, it still remains a tough ask for politicians to stand and operate successfully on a primarily green platform. The former President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, however, has been at the forefront of a transition to a new world order—in which politicians who champion good environmental stewardship as a means to economic prosperity will become the norm.
In his ten years as President, which ended in October 2014, President Yudhoyono stuck to his guns in face of sometimes intense opposition, making environmental integrity a central tenet of Indonesia’s sustainable development and enabling his nation to achieve economic growth while supporting and promoting low-carbon development.
At the 2009 G-20 Leaders Summit in Pittsburgh, he became the first president from a major developing country to voluntarily pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—committing to cutting emissions by as much as 41 from predicted business-as-usual 2020 levels by tackling forest fires and deforestation. He put his money where his mouth when he imposed a two-year moratorium on logging concessions. In 2011, in the face of intense industry pressure, he extended this moratorium for another two years. He followed this up in 2013 when he signed into existence the world’s first dedicated REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) agency at a cabinet level in 2013.
Meanwhile, he strove to spread awareness throughout Indonesia of the importance of responsible management of precious natural resources by integrating environmental conservation into national curricula, and by making it more difficult for perpetrators of environmental crimes to evade prosecution.
Now that his two terms are completed, President Yudhoyono will continue to follow his green path as the next Global Green Growth Institute Assembly President. His example as a politician unafraid to tread a green path is one that many other leaders of developing nations can draw strength from.
In his words to the G-20, “It is possible to cure the global economy and save the planet at the same time.”
One of Prince Albert II's first acts as sovereign of Monaco was to sign the Kyoto Protocol - an eloquent sign of his longstanding commitment to the environment. Prince Albert has been a prominent voice on environmental issues since the early 1990s and he has been strongly involved in raising awareness on climate change, leading an expedition to the North Pole in 2006 to draw attention to the consequences of global warming.
The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, which he created in 2006, works actively on protecting the environment and promoting sustainable development, with a focus on biodiversity loss, water and the fight against climate change. Prince Albert is also a patron of the Billion Tree Campaign, which successfully led to the planting of well over a billion trees across the planet in 2007.
Prince Albert has also shown remarkable commitment to sustainable development on his home turf of Monaco. Under his leadership, Monaco is now applying an exemplary policy on CO2 reduction in every sphere of society as well as in the business sector.
