Nominations for the inaugural RTCC Climate Change Awards, due to be presented at UNFCCC COP19 in Warsaw
RTCC 2013 Climate Change Awards: full nominations
Connie Hedegaard. (Pic: Johannes Jansson)
Tzeporah Berman helped organise Greenpeace’s Save the Arctic, Volkswagen and Clean Our Cloud campaigns which have seen successes in 2013.
She wrote ‘This Crazy Time: Living Our Environmental Challenge’ in 2012 and is currently working on tar sands and pipeline campaigns in Canada, the US and Europe with many environmental organisations and First Nations groups.
She was awarded an honourary degree from the University of British Colombia this summer and has been co-director of Greenpeace International’s Global Climate and Energy Program, Executive Director and Co-founder of PowerUp Canada and Co-founder and Campaign Director of ForestEthics.
Osprey Orielle Lake is the Co-founder and Co-Director of the International Women’s Earth and Climate Initiative, who organised its September 2013 summit which will create a draft of a “Women’s Climate Action Agenda.”
She is the founder and President of The Women’s Earth and Climate Caucus (WECC) and works nationally and internationally to promote resilient communities and foster a post-carbon energy future, while also addressing societal transformation. Lake is Co-Chair of International Advocacy with the Global Alliance for the Rights Of Nature and is an advisor to the International Eco-Cities Framework and Standards Initiative.
As the EU Commissioner for Climate Action, Connie Hedegaard was involved in the Commission initiating a climate and energy policy framework for 2030 this year, so that Europe can start to define its targets on carbon emissions, renewable energy and energy efficiency for 2030.
Following the European Commission’s adoption of a Green Paper on ‘A 2030 framework for climate and energy policies’ and the subsequent public consultation, the Commission is preparing more concrete proposals for the 2030 framework scheduled for the end of 2013.
She also launched a series of public events in southern and eastern Europe to engage more European citizens in the climate change debate and to encourage individual action to combat it in March 2013. In June, the European Parliament and the EU governments reached a deal on the European Commission’s car emissions proposal to secure a 95g of CO2/km 2020 target ensure a limited use of supercredits.
An atmospheric scientist who studies climate change, Dr Hayhoe is an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who released the first part of their 5th assessment report this year and has been working on the US National Climate assessment this year, due out early 2014.
Professor Francisca Nneka Okeke
Professor Okeke has made significant contributions to the understanding of daily variations of the ion currents in the upper atmosphere which may further scientists’ understanding of climate change. She was the 2013 Laureate for Africa of L’Oreal-UNESCO Award in Physical Science.
As the Executive Director of 350.org, May Boeve has had a great year of campaigning and movement building with Go Fossil Free campaign and Global Power Shift Phase 1 in June, with Phase 2 rolling out across world since. On the steering committee for the International Women’s Earth and Climate Initiative (IWECI).
Leading Venezuela’s preparations for its pre-COP ministerial summit in 2014, Claudia Salerno Caldera proposed at the UNFCCC’s Bonn intersessional conference in June 2013 that the meeting should be the first opportunity for civil society around the world to make direct proposals to the representatives of each nation so that their ideas can become part of the fight to stop climate change, calling it a ‘people’s pre-COP’.
As Venezuela’s lead climate change negotiator to the UNFCCC, she caused a stir at the Durban conference in 2011 after standing on her chair to demonstrate that Venezuela would not be sidelined.
As Vice President for Sustainable Development at the World Bank, Rachel Kyte is responsible for driving the World Bank’s leadership on inclusive green growth and climate change.
The World Bank has taken a strong stance on climate change in 2013, following its ‘Turn Down the Heat; Why a 4 degree world must be avoided’ report in November 2012, with the second part in June 2013 (‘Climate Extremes, Regional Impacts, and the Case for Resilience’) looking at likely impacts of 2°C and 4°C warming across three vulnerable region,
Mardi McBrien was awarded the Sheila McKechnie Foundation’s Environmental Award 2013. As managing Director of the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB), she has led the development of their Climate Change Reporting Framework, which enables companies to include non-financial information in their mainstream financial reporting, so that they may assess and act on the risks related to climate change.
Her primary role was to campaign for the integration of the CDSB Framework by companies and regulatory bodies, including the EU and the UK Government.
The UK parliament passed amendments to the Companies Act 2006 in July 2013, which will require all UK quoted companies (ie with equity shares listed on London Stock Exchange Main Market, NYSE or NASDAQ, or any EEA regulated market) to report greenhouse gas emissions in their Strategic or Directors’ Reports.
CDSB’s Climate Change Reporting Framework has been listed in guidance that accompanies the legislation as one of the methods that may be used by companies in order to comply with the new greenhouse gas reporting requirement.
Shard climbers: Ali Garrigan, Victoria Henry, Sabine Huyghe, Sandra Lamborn, Liesbeth Deddens, Wiola Smul
Six activists completed the ‘ice climb’ and reached the summit of the Shard in central London, the tallest building in western Europe, after a 14-hour protest climb as part of Greenpeace’s Save the Arctic campaign in July 2013.
The climb was live-streamed and supported by intensive social media coverage, including tweeting from the climbers, gaining global media attention.