Bangladesh News

Renowned environmentalist Dr Atiq Rahman has won this year’s Champions of the Earth Award for the Asia Pacific region.

The executive director of Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS), Dr Atiq has received the award along with six others across the world.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi, Kenya announced the award yesterday on the 10th Special Session of its Governing Council.

The other recipients of Champions of the Earth 2008 are Helen Clark, prime minister of New Zealand, Balgis Osman-Elasha, a senior researcher at Sudan’s Higher Council for Environment & Natural Resources, Henrietta Elizabeth Thompson, former energy and environment minister of Barbados, Prince Albert II of Monaco, former US Senator Timothy E Wirth and Abdul-Qader Ba-Jammal, secretary general of the People’s General Congress of Yemen.

The winners will be presented with their awards at a special ceremony in Singapore on April 22, 2008.

In the award letter, Achim Steiner, UN under-secretary general and UNEP executive director, observed that Dr Atiq is one of the leading specialists in the field through his national and international experience in sustainable development, and environment and resource management.

Dr Atiq’s publications on the subjects of environment and development in Bangladesh can be a reference for peers, he said adding that the post-graduate course that Dr Atiq had designed on “Sustainable Development Challenges and North South Dialogue” is innovative.

Lauding Dr Atiq’s contribution, Achim Steiner noted that as a citizen of Bangladesh, a country extremely vulnerable to climate change and flooding, his expertise remains vital throughout the region.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) set up the award in 2004.

The annual prize rewards individuals from around the globe who have made a significant and recognised contribution globally, regionally and beyond, to the protection and sustainable management of the Earth’s environment and natural resources.

Past Champions of the Earth winners include, among others, Ms Massoudeh Ebtekar, former vice president of Iran, Mikhail Gorbachev of the Russian Federation, Prince Hassan Bin Talal of Jordan, Jacques Rogge and the International Olympic Committee, and Al Gore, former vice president of the United States.

PROFILE OF DR ATIQ RAHMAN:
Born in 1950, Dr Atiq Rahman is a lead author of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He played a leading role in UNCED, Rio, 1992, Intergovernmental Negotiations on Climate Change (INC) session and all the Conferences of Parties and Climate Summits in Kyoto, 1997 leading to Kyoto Protocol. Dr Atiq has designed, developed and taught a multi-disciplinary post-graduate course on “Sustainable Development Challenges and North South Dialogue” at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Cambridge, USA. He is a visiting professor of International Diplomacy and Sustainable Development at Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Boston, USA where he designed and teaches a multi-disciplinary post-graduate course on “Southern Perspectives on Sustainable Development.”