FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 14, 20172017 BLUE PLANET PRIZE:
ANNOUNCEMENT OF PRIZE WINNERS

This year marks the 26th awarding of the Blue Planet Prize, the international environmental award sponsoredby the Asahi Glass Foundation, chaired by Kazuhiko Ishimura. Two Blue Planet Prizes are awarded toindividuals or organizations each year that make outstanding achievements in scientific research and its
application, and in so doing help to solve global environmental problems. The Board of Directors andCouncillors decided the following recipients for this year.
1. Prof. Hans J. Schellnhuber (Germany)
Founder and Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)Prof. Schellnhuber heads the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). He
is also the founder of the Institute. He has helped establish a new field of science,“ Earth System Analysis, ” which uses mathematical models to integrateinterdisciplinary resources into providing a planet-wide view. His activities eventuallycreated a torrent of measures against global warming worldwide, resulting in the 2degree guardrail agreed upon by more than 190 countries at the UN climate summit
COP21 in 2015. Prof. Schellnhuber and the PIK have played a central role in this field
for many years.
.

2. Prof. Gretchen C. Daily (USA)
Bing Professor of Environmental Science in the Department of Biology, Director of
the Center for Conservation Biology, and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods
Institute, at Stanford University, Co-Founder and Faculty Director of the Natural
Capital ProjectProf. Daily has studied the effects of human activities on the biosphere, based on fieldwork of many years. She has played the major role in the creation and development of
a new interdisciplinary field of environmental science called “Countryside
Biogeography.” She is making significant contributions to our understanding of
biodiversity, by predicting various species’ likelihood of surviving human impacts andanalyzing the future of ecosystems and the implications for human well-being,
especially from the standpoint of agricultural land use. She has incorporated
environmental issues into business practices and public policies in worldwide.
Both recipients will be awarded a certificate of merit, a commemorative trophy and a supplementary award of
50 million yen.
The awards ceremony will be held on October 18, 2017 (Wednesday) at the Palace Hotel Tokyo (Chiyoda
Ward, Tokyo). The commemorative lectures by the prize recipients will be held at the United Nations
University (Shibuya Ward, Tokyo) on Ocotber 19.
*This press release may also be viewed on our web site at www.af-info.or.jp. from 15:00, June 14, 2017.
The photos of the recipients are available from the web site of the Asahi Glass Foundation.

Report on the Selection Process (26th Annual Prize, 2017)
A total of 530 nominators from Japan and 770 nominators from other countries recommended 130 candidates.
The fields represented by the candidates, in order of number, were ecology (30), environmental economics
and policy making (25), atmospheric and earth sciences(16), multidisciplinary field (16).
The candidates represented 33 countries; 25 persons, 19 percent of the total, were from developing
countries.
After individual evaluation of the 130 candidates by each Selection Committee member, the committee
was convened to narrow down the field. The results of their deliberation were examined by the Presentation
Committee, which forwarded its recommendations to the Board of Directors and Councillors. The Board
formally resolved to award the Prize to Prof. Schellnhuber, and to Prof. Daily.
The Laureates
1992

Dr. Syukuro Manabe (USA)International Institute for Environment andDevelopment (UK)2005

Professor Sir Nicholas
Shackleton (UK)
Dr. Gordon Hisashi Sato (USA)1993

Dr. Charles D. Keeling (USA)IUCN—The World Conservation
Union (headquartered in Switzerland)

2006

Dr. Akira Miyawaki (Japan)
Dr. Emil Salim (Indonesia)

1994

Professor Dr. Eugen Seibold(Germany)
Mr. Lester R. Brown (USA)2007

Professor Joseph L. Sax (USA)Dr. Amory B. Lovins (USA)1995

Dr. Bert Bolin (Sweden)
Mr. Maurice F. Strong (Canada)

2008

Dr. Claude Lorius (France)
Professor José Goldemberg (Brazil)

1996

Dr. Wallace S. Broecker (USA)The M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (India)

2009

Professor Hirofumi Uzawa (Japan)
Lord Nicholas Stern of Brentford (UK)1997

Dr. James E. Lovelock (UK)Conservation International (head­quartered in the USA)2010

Dr. James Hansen (USA)
Dr. Robert Watson (UK)1998

Professor Mikhail I. Budyko (Russia)
Mr. David R. Brower (USA)2011

Dr. Jane Lubchenco (USA)
Barefoot College (India)

1999

Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich (USA)Professor Qu Geping (China)

2012

Professor William E. Rees (Canada)
and Dr. Mathis Wackernagel (Switzerland)
Dr. Thomas E. Lovejoy (USA)2000

Dr. Theo Colborn (USA)Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt (Sweden)
Lord (Robert) May of Oxford(Australia)
Dr. Norman Myers (UK)

2013

2002

Dr. Harold A. Mooney (USA)Professor J. Gustave Speth(USA)

2015

2003

Dr. Gene E. Likens (USA) and
Dr. F. Herbert Bormann (USA)Dr. Vo Quy (Vietnam)
Dr. Susan Solomon (USA)Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland (Norway)

2016

Dr. Taroh Matsuno (Japan)
Professor Daniel Sperling (USA)Prof. Herman Daly (USA)Prof. Daniel H. Janzen (USA)and Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad(INBio)Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta
FBA FRS (UK)
Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs (USA)Mr. Pavan Sukhdev (India)
Prof. Markus Borner (Switzerland)

2001

2004

2014

2017

Prof. Hans J. Schellnhuber (Germany)
Prof. Gretchen C. Daily (USA)For more information, please contact: Junichi Shimizu
THE ASAHI GLASS FOUNDATION
2nd Floor, Science Plaza, 5-3 Yonbancho Chiyoda-ku,
Tokyo 102-0081 Japan
Phone +81-3-5275-0620 Fax +81-3-5275-0871
e-mail: post@af-info.or.jp URL: h ttp ://www.af -info.or.jp

1Attachment

Profile of the 2017 Blue Planet Prize Recipient
Prof. Hans J. Schellnhuber (Germany)
Achievements of Prof. Hans J. Schellnhuber
Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber helped to create a new field of science, described in his book
“Earth System1 Analysis for Sustainability”2. He and his fellow researchers developed the concept of criticalclimatological “tipping points”3 and “tipping elements”4, which refers to special tipping points leading toenormous environmental and social impacts. The information gained by this research can be used bypolicymakers to prepare for and cope with possible natural disasters related to climate change. Thus, he has
been a major contributor to multidisciplinary collaborations between the natural and social sciences.
Professor Schellnhuber’s research on climate change at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact
Research (PIK)5 has contributed to the international community’s target of limiting global warming by 1.5 to
2 °C at the COP21 UN climate change agreement in Paris. To achieve this target, he advocated the sciencebased control of total CO2 emissions (the “carbon budget approach”6 – humanity can dispose only a limited
amount of greenhouse-gas emissions in the atmosphere if it wants to avoid the bulk of climate risks, and thisamount can be calculated) and proposed the now-mainstream idea that the global community should shift awayfrom its reliance on carbon energy to make a historic change in its economic and social system. He informs
global opinions by clearly explaining the science behind global warming and sustainability to the public.
Professor Schellnhuber has published around 350 articles and papers , presenting his research
initiatives and findings in the most renowned international scientific journals. Yet in addition to this, heassumed the role of a public intellectual, contributing to some of the key public debates. He does so not only byproviding countless media contributions. For example, in 2015, he published his book “Self-Combustion,”
which from the personal perspective of a passionate scientist discussed topics including the global warming
crisis, the physical processes of the earth, and the impact of humanity on the environment. He continues tocontribute to society through his research and communications.
1

The Earth System
This phrase refers to the complete system of our planet, including groups of sub-systems such as theatmosphere, the ocean, the crust, the biological sphere (ecosystem) and the anthropogenic sphere (humansociety).
2

The Science of Earth System Analysis for Sustainability
Professor Schellnhuber is an expert on theoretical physics and studied quantum mechanics, nonlinear
dynamics, and chaos theory. He originally used numerical models to study the ecosystem of tide flats. When theGerman government initiated the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in 1992, he became thefounding Director.
Professor Schellnhuber utilizes numerical simulations and has undertaken a variety ofinterdisciplinary collaborations with other scientists. One representative example of PIK’s activities is the InterSectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI-MIP), which works as a core organization for hugeinterdisciplinary simulations studies by experts worldwide.
Professor Schellnhuber has published about 350 papers and 60 books. Furthermore, the World Bank
Group entrusted him with the preparation of a series of reports called “Turn Down the Heat”:”Turn Down the
Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must be Avoided” (2012), “Turn Down the Heat: Climate Extremes, Regional
Impacts and the Case for Resilience” (2013), and “Turn Down the Heat: Confronting the New Climate Normal”(2014). He greatly influenced the consensus of the international community at COP21 in 2015 to limit average
global warming to 2 degrees compared with pre-industrial levels.
3

Tipping Points
When the state of an Earth system is in transition to a qualitatively different state, in which largechanges can be initiated through minor additional perturbations, the critical threshold is generally called atipping point. In some cases, even if a tipping point is exceeded, a significant change may not occur
immediately, though a sudden change may still occur after the transition period. For example, Earth’s
atmosphere, oceans, and ecosystems are subsystems that have critical tipping points leading to sudden changes
in their physical state.

2

4

Tipping Elements
When an element of the Earth system, pushed for instance by human-made warming, reaches aparticular tipping point, it can cause significant changes which occur over broad areas (sub-continental at least)
and with enormous magnitude. If this happens, the impacts on human society can be very high. Elements of the
Earth system that are susceptible to such drastic, relatively rapid and potentially irreversible changes are calledtipping elements.Since system changes inevitably affect human societies, information about tipping elements
can be relevant to public policy; for example human-induced CO2 increases can be considered a tipping element
leading to a tipping point for global climate change. Other examples include the reduction of Arctic sea ice inthe summer, melting of glaciers, reduction of ice sheets in the western part of the South Pole (THC),
thermohaline circulation in the Atlantic Ocean (WAIS), El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Indian Summer
Monsoons (ISM), West African Monsoons (WAM), Amazon Rainforest, Boreal Forest, Antarctic Bottom Water(AABW), global warming and the tundra, permafrost soil, methane hydrate in the ocean, Oceanic Anoxic
Events, and the ozone hole above Antarctica.
（Ref：Lenton, T. M., et al. (2008). "Tipping elements in the Earth's climate system." Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 105(6): 1786-1793.）
5

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research is a publicly funded scientific organization thatwas founded in Potsdam, Germany in 1992. It is a member of the Leibniz Association. With a current staff ofabout 300 people, PIK is organized into four research domains: Earth System Analysis, Climate Impacts andVulnerabilities, Sustainable Solutions, and Transdisciplinary Concepts & Methods. Its mission is summarized
on its website as follows:“PIK addresses crucial scientific questions in the fields of global change, climate impacts and sustainable
development.
Researchers from the natural and social sciences work together to generate interdisciplinary insights and toprovide society with sound information for decision making.
The main methodologies are systems and scenarios analysis, modelling,
computer simulation, and data integration.”
6

Carbon Budget Approach
It is well-established science that anthropogenic, meaning man-made, global temperature increase iscorrelated (in a quasi-linear way) to the total amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere (pastemissions + future emissions). This means that in order to meet the environmental target of the Paris Agreement– keeping global average temperature increase well below 2°C – a remaining global carbon budget can becalculated. This is done by taking into account historic emissions to date and by specifying a probability forstaying below this temperature threshold.
Early on, Professor Schellnhuber recognized the importance of this fundamental principle in climate
physics and, together with his colleagues at the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU),
developed the so-called “Budget Approach”, published in a 2009 Special Report. The concept stipulates a fair
allocation of the remaining global carbon budget for climate stabilization among the nations of the world
together with the possibility for carbon pricing and emissions trading in order to operationalize its
implementation in practice. In turn, the allocation of a limited “carbon budget” for each country based on anumber of objective and transparent rules allows the world to divide up the efforts to reduce emissions ofgreenhouse gases. Although there are different methods for determining national emissions budgets, mostresearch papers and provisional calculations concerning the differentiation of numerical targets make reference
to the basic principles of the carbon budget approach in some way. Moreover, the Potsdam Institute for Climate
Impact Research (PIK) plays a central role in analyzing the numerical targets and commitments of each country
communicated in the context of the conclusion of the Paris Agreement.

3

Biographical Summary
Academic background1976 B.S. in Department of Physics and Mathematics at the University of Regensburg, Germany
1980 Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the University of Regensburg, Germany
1981

Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Theoretical Physics (ITP), University of California,
Santa Barbara, USA

Career1982 Student Assistant in Physics Department, University of Regensburg
1987 Assistant Professor in Physics Department, University of Oldenburg
1987 Heisenberg Fellowship of the German Science Foundation (DFG)
Visiting Professor at the Institute of Nonlinear Sciences, University of California,
Santa Cruz, USA
1988 Full Professor for Theoretical Physics, University of Oldenburg
1992 Managing Director of the Interdisciplinary Institute for Coastal Environment Studies(ICBM), University of Oldenburg
1993 Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
Chair for Theoretical Physics at the University of Potsdam, Germany
2001 Additional engagement as Research Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change
Research
Professor at the Environmental Sciences School of the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK2010 External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, USA
2015 Senior Research Fellow with the Stockholm Resilience Centre, SwedenAwards
2002

Wolfson Research Merit Award and Research Fellowship of the Royal Society

2004 Honorary CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) awarded by Queen
Elizabeth II
2007 German Environment Prize2008 Environment Prize of the “Bundesdeutscher Arbeitskreis für Umweltbewusstes Management
e.V.“ (B.A.U.M)
2008 Times Higher Education Award: Research Project of the Year (University of East Anglia:
Climate-System Tipping Elements, initiated by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber)
2011

Volvo Environment Prize, awarded in Stockholm

2011 Pioneer of the German Energy Transformation2013 Wilhelm-Foerster-Prize awarded by the URANIA Potsdam
2014 Honorary citizenship of the town of Ortenburg, Passau
2014 Culture Prize awarded by the district of Passau

4Prof. Gretchen C. Daily (USA )Achievements of Prof. Gretchen C. Daily
Professor Daily has studied the effects of human activities on the biosphere8 based on field work ofmany years. She has also assessed which types of species and ecosystems9 will survive human impacts, overthe coming decades and century, and the implications for human well-being. She has been making efforts
based on scientific evidence to achieve a sustainable society that is in harmony with nature.
To this end, Professor Daily has developed a new field of academic study called Countryside
Biogeography10. Under this model, most parts of the earth can be seen as countrysides11—that is, areas thatare strongly influenced by human activities. Daily has explored the extent to which biodiversity12 andecosystem services13 to society are being changed by humans. Together with other researchers, she is making
significant contributions to our understanding of biodiversity, by predicting various species’ likelihood ofsurvival and analyzing the future of ecosystems, especially from the standpoint of agricultural land use.
Premised on the theory of Countryside Biogeography, Professor Daily has developed a quantitative
framework and supporting models14 to explore how a sustainable society could be achieved. The model she
used—developed by the Natural Capital Project (NatCap) partnership15 that she co-founded and directed—
considers bioenvironmental, economic, and institutional elements, and forecasts likely future changes to lifeand life-support systems on Earth. With the objective of achieving a balanced ecosystem and the welfare ofhumans, under a particular scenario (the environmental conditions of habitats), her findings have served to
inform investments in nature by governments, multi-lateral institutions, corporations and communities.
In summary, Professor Daily has played a significant role in the creation and development of a newinterdisciplinary field of science called Countryside Biogeography. Further, She has made an important
contribution to our understanding of practical actions that can be implemented to secure both ecosystems andhuman well-being, and of the policy measures needed to support these outcomes.

8

Biosphere
The biosphere is the thin layer of life about Earth’s surface – the sum of the area in which organisms
live, and where the interactions between the organisms and non-living materials occur. In a narrow sense, abiosphere refers only to the organisms in the area.
9

Ecosystem
An ecosystem includes all the groups of organisms and non-living materials in a certain area. To acertain extent, an ecosystem represents a closed system.
10

Countryside Biogeography

Countryside Biogeography is the study of life over space and time in areas defined as
Countryside*11 that have been significantly affected by human activities.
11

Countryside
Countryside is defined as the increasing proportion of the Earth’s ecosystems strongly influenced byhumans. It includes the Earth’s unbuilt land surfaces, as well as agricultural plots, gardens and pastures,plantations or managed forests, and the remnants of native vegetation in areas devoted primarily to humanactivities. For example, more than half of Costa Rica is Countryside; over half of its native bird species occur
in largely deforested countryside habitats, together with comparable proportions of mammals, reptiles andamphibians, and butterflies, moths, bees and other insects.

12

Biodiversity
Biodiversity consists of diversity with respect to ecosystems and species, as well as genetic diversity(diversity of genes), and indicates that a variety of organisms exist in an ecosystem/biotic formation, as well
as globally.

13

Ecosystem services
Ecosystem services are the benefits an ecosystem provides to humans. These benefits are of four types:
1) Supply services
Food, lumber, clothing, water, and medicine that is necessary for food, clothing, and shelter52) Adjustment services
Purification of the air and water, modulation of climate, and prevention of natural disasters
3) Cultural services
Entertainment such as outdoor recreation for enriching human life4) Fundamental services
Plant photosynthesis, soil formation (soil formed by insects and microorganisms), and the water cycle are
the foundation of the above services 1) to 3).
14

Quantitative analysis model
The Natural Capital Project15 has developed a framework for valuing the benefits of nature, codified
in a quantitative analysis model called InVEST (for Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services andTradeoffs). This software is used to model and map the transmission/distribution of ecosystem services andeconomic values. InVEST is used by researchers and decision-makers to visualize the effects of a variety ofdevelopment scenarios, and the trade-offs between and convertibility of environmental, economic, and social
benefits. It is capable of simulating the effects of resource management practices and various investment
options (scenarios) on the economy, health, and environment for administrators and policy makers.

15

Natural Capital Project (NatCap)
The Natural Capital Project (NatCap) is a partnership comprising academics, software engineers,and real-world professionals that provides free, open-source tools to advance understanding of the value ofnature to society, and the trade-offs between the benefits of investments and ecosystem services when
governments/developmental organizations/NGOs/corporations make significant decisions on
investments/loans. InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs) software provides
tools for mapping and valuing ecosystem services on land and in the ocean.

56

Biographical Summary
Academic background1986 B.S. in biological sciences from Stanford University
1987 M.S. in biological sciences at Stanford University
1992 Ph.D. in biological sciences from Stanford University
1992 Winslow/Heinz Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley's Energy and Resources Group.
Career1995 Bing Interdisciplinary Research Scientist in the Department of Biological Sciences at Stanford
University.
2005 Bing Professor of Environmental Science in the Department of Biology at Stanford University
Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environmen
Director of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University
2006 Member of the board of directors of The Nature Conservancy
2013 Visiting Professor in Sustainability Studies at the University of Cambridge
Awards2000 The 21st Century Scientist Award
2008 The Sophie Prize2009 The International Cosmos Prize2010 The Heinz Award
2010 The Midori Prize2012 Volvo Environment Prize

57

Remarks from the Award Recipients upon Notification of their Selection
Prof. Hans J. Schellnhuber (Germany)
Seen from outer space, our home looks like a fragile blue marble, embedded in endless darkness. Evidently,
the Earth and its life-supporting systems need to be handled with the utmost care. Therefore, I am mostgrateful for receiving the Blue Planet Prize 2017. But at the same time, I feel humbled by the daunting
challenge to help preserve our common home for future generations. We climate scientists have a twofold task
to fullfill: first, unravelling the web of processes that make or break the planetary environment. And second,taking responsibility for the relentless communication of our findings to the stakeholders and the public. The
latter is quite difficult in these times dominated by 'fake news' and 'alternative facts'. So we have to defend
reason agains superstition and to set moral agains ideology. All this epitomized by the Blue Planet Prize.

Prof. GRETCHEN C. DAILY (USA)
Understanding the deep interconnections between people and Nature is fundamental to human health, security,and prosperity. We live in dangerous times, but at the cusp of a revolution in how people think about Nature.
Around the world, we see awakening to human dependence on our blue planet’s non-human companions,from microbes and bees to giant sequoias and vast coral reefs. We see emergence of a common language andapproach for integrating the values of nature into the design of cities, working landscapes and seascapes, andprotected areas.
The Japanese satoyama and satoumi systems yield key insights, and illuminate the challenge of bringing
understanding from the past into our urbanized and digitized world.
I am so grateful to the Asahi Glass Foundation – and my many colleagues in the Center for Conservation
Biology, the Natural Capital Project, and elsewhere – for driving the transformation from understanding into
compassion and meaningful, durable action.

8