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.
