Karl-Henrik Robèrt and other Blue Planet Prize winners call for Transformational Change in paper launched this week at UNEP

Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt, Founder of The Natural Step, joined a group of the world’s leading scientists and experts in sustainable development today in calling for urgent changes to policies and institutions to enable humanity to tackle environmental crises and improve human wellbeing.

The group – all past winners of the Blue Planet Prize – have gathered in London to finalise a paper that will be launched at the UN Environment Programme’s Governing Council meeting in Nairobi on 20-22 February.

The paper will emphasise transformational solutions to key environment and development challenges. It highlights the policies, technologies and behaviour changes required to protect the local, regional and global environment, stimulate the economy and enhance the livelihoods of the poor.

The paper, Environmental and Development Challenges: The imperative to act comes ahead of the Rio+20 conference in Brazil in June, which marks the 20th anniversary of the historic UN Conference on Environment and Development (Rio Earth Summit).

To view the draft paper, please visit Blue Planet Laureates: Environmental and Development Challenges – The Imperative to Act

To read the press release click here.

The Blue Planet laureates who gathered in London to work on the paper are:

• Professor Sir Bob Watson, Chief Scientific Adviser of the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
• Lord (Robert) May of Oxford, former Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government and President of Royal Society of London
• Professor Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University
• Professor Harold Mooney, Stanford University
• Dr. Gordon Hisashi Sato, President, Manzanar Project Corporation
• Professor José Goldemberg, Secretary for the Environment of the State of São Paulo, Brazil and Brazil’s interim Secretary of Environment during the Rio Earth Summit in 1992
• Dr Emil Salim, former Environment Minister of the Republic of Indonesia
• Dr Camilla Toulmin, Director of the International Institute for Environment and Development
• Bunker Roy, Founder of Barefoot College
• Dr Syukuro Manabe, Senior Scientist, Princeton University
• Julia Marton-Lefevre, Director-General of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
• Dr Simon Stuart, Chair of the Species Survival Commission of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
• Dr Will Turner, Vice President of Conservation Priorities and Outreach, Conservation International
• Dr Karl-Henrik Robèrt, Founder of The Natural Step, Sweden