Klaus Töpfer

Klaus Töpfer (2017)

Klaus Töpfer (born July 29, 1938 in Waldenburg , Silesia ) is a German politician ( CDU ) and former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). From 1987 to 1994 he was Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in Helmut Kohl's government .

Until March 2020, Töpfer was a member elected by the German Bundestag and Bundesrat and at the same time one of the chairmen of the National Advisory Committee , which, in accordance with the Site Selection Act in Germany, accompanies the search for a location for a repository for highly radioactive waste.

education

After the expulsion of the family from Silesia in 1945 and attending school in Hoxter was pottery in 1959 at King William High School , the High School . He then did his military service in the Bundeswehr until 1960 and was dismissed as a lieutenant in the reserve .

Töpfer completed a degree in economics in Mainz , Frankfurt am Main and Münster , which he completed in 1964 with a degree in economics. From 1965 to 1971 he worked as a research assistant at the Central Institute for Spatial Planning at the University of Münster. In 1968 he received his doctorate here as a Dr. rer. pole. with the work regional policy and location decision .

job

From 1971 to 1978 he was department head for planning and information in the Saarland State Chancellery . He was a lecturer at the German University of Administrative Sciences in Speyer and prepared development policy reports for Egypt , Malawi , Brazil and Jordan . From 1978 to 1979 he was a full professor and director of the Institute for Spatial Research and Regional Planning at the University of Hanover . In addition, from 1978 to 1979, Töpfer was also a member of the Council of Experts for Environmental Issues and a member of the Board of Directors of the Reconstruction Loan Corporation . From 1985 to 1986 he taught as an honorary professor at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz . In November 2005, the Faculty of Economics at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen reappointed him as an honorary professor. Since May 2, 2007, he has also been Professor of Environment and Sustainable Development at Tongji University in Shanghai .

politics

Töpfer has been a member of the CDU since 1972. From 1977 to 1979 he was district chairman of the CDU Saarbrücken . He was a member of the state executive committee of the CDU Saar .

From 1978 to 1985 he was State Secretary in the Ministry for Social Affairs, Health and Environment of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate . On May 23, 1985 he was appointed Minister for Environment and Health of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate in the state government led by Prime Minister Bernhard Vogel .

On 7 May 1987 then he was appointed Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in by Chancellor Helmut Kohl led federal government . An important event during this period was the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development . In May 1988 he jumped into the Rhine in a wetsuit in a media-effective action . He wanted to demonstrate the success of the water protection measures since the major fire of Schweizerhalle in November 1986. At that time, 10,000 to 15,000 cubic meters of extinguishing water were contaminated with chemicals at a plant belonging to the Sandoz Group and ended up in the Rhine. The subsequent fish deaths led to massive efforts to rehabilitate the river from the Swiss upper reaches to the mouth. Töpfer was one of the main people responsible for the introduction of the yellow sack , which is primarily intended to dispose of lightweight packaging.

After the federal election in 1994 , he was appointed Federal Minister for Regional Planning, Building and Urban Development on November 17, 1994 . From 1990 to 1998, Töpfer was a member of the German Bundestag . He was last drafted into the German Bundestag (13th electoral term 1994) via the Saarland state list.

From 1987 to 1989 he was district chairman of the CDU Rhein-Hunsrück . From 1989 to 1998 he was a member of the CDU federal executive board and from 1992 to 1998 also of the CDU presidium . From 1990 to 1995 he was also state chairman of the CDU of Saarland. In 1990 and 1994 he stood as the top candidate of the Saarland CDU, but lost both times to Oskar Lafontaine . For the Berlin election 2006 he was in discussion as a challenger to Klaus Wowereit , but on January 2, 2006, in a newspaper interview, he refused to accept the top candidacy.

Public offices from 1998

Töpfer resigned from the German government on January 15, 1998 to take up his post as Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) in Nairobi, to which he was unanimously elected by the UN General Assembly on December 3, 1997. His second term formally ended on March 31, 2006. Töpfer decided not to run for a third term. His successor as UNEP Executive Director was Achim Steiner . From 1998 to 2006, Töpfer was also Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations ( UN ) and Director General of the United Nations Office in Nairobi . Furthermore, from 2001 to 2010 he was a member and most recently Deputy Chairman of the Council for Sustainable Development .

Töpfer has been a member of the University Council of Paderborn University since 2007 .

Töpfer has been Vice President of Welthungerhilfe since 2008 .

From February 2009 to September 2015 Töpfer was Director of the newly founded Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam.

Since 2009 Klaus Töpfer has been chairman of the jury for the Innovation Prize for Climate and Environment (IKU).

In January 2011, Töpfer took over the patronage of the Karl Kübel Prize , which will be awarded on September 5th in Frankfurt am Main by the Karl Kübel Foundation for Children and Family .

In March 2011 Töpfer took over the chairmanship of the ethics committee for a secure energy supply of the federal government . The ethics committee was set up by the federal government as a result of the Fukushima nuclear disaster . Matthias Kleiner was appointed as a further chairman . Klaus Töpfer is also the patron of the German-Russian Raw Materials Forum.

He is a member of the Presidium of the German Society for the United Nations and a member of the Board of Trustees of the German Foundation for World Population (DSW).

Since May 2014, pottery, together with Dirk Messner , chairman of the German part of the UN network, as Sustainable Development Solutions Network .

In 2018, Töpfer was appointed arbitrator in the electricity dispute between Serbia and Kosovo.

Töpfer is one of the patrons of atmosfair .

Publications (selection)

• with Friederike Bauer: Arche in turmoil: what we can do to save the earth . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-003702-2 .
• with Ranga Yogeshwar : Our future: A conversation about the world after Fukushima. Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-62922-8 .

Private

Klaus Töpfer has been married since 1968 and has three children and four grandchildren. He has lived in Höxter since his return to Germany .

Audio

• Deutschlandfunk May 26, 2019 Ex-Environment Minister CDU has "a lot of room for improvement" in terms of climate protection , Klaus Töpfer in conversation with Barbara Schmidt-Mattern , audio version 1/2 year online

honors and awards

Helmut Kohl awarded Klaus Töpfer the Great Federal Cross of Merit in 1990

• 1986 Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon
• 1986 Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class
• 1987 Leibniz Medal of the Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz
• 1989 Donkey order of the city of Wesel
• 1990 Large Federal Cross of Merit
• Honorary member of the KStV Ketteler Mainz in KV
• 1993 Goldene Blume von Rheydt, oldest environmental protection award in Germany
• 1997 Great Cross of Merit with Star and Shoulder Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 1997 Honorary Professorship at Tongji University Shanghai
• 1998 Honorary doctorate from the Brandenburg Technical University in Cottbus
• 1999 EuroNatur Prize from the EuroNatur environmental foundation
• 2002 German Environment Prize of the German Federal Environment Foundation (DBU)
• 2002 Honorary doctorate from the Free University of Berlin for his services as a politician and his commitment to environmental policy .
• 2002 Honorary doctorate from the University of Duisburg-Essen for his life's work, but above all his commitment to an ecologically satisfactory, economically justifiable and socially balanced solution to global environmental problems and his unconditional support for the interests of the countries of the Third World.
• 2003 Honorary doctorate from the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz University of Hanover
• 2003 Grand Binding Prize for nature and environmental protection from the Liechtenstein Binding Foundation
• 2004 Johannes Gutenberg Endowed Professorship at the University of Mainz
• 2004 Christopher Ernest Barthel Jr Award, IUAPPA
• 2005 Honorary doctorate from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)
• 2005 honorary professor at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen
• 2005 Theodor Heuss Prize
• 2005 Dag Hammarskjöld Medal of Honor from the German Society for the United Nations , DGVN
• 2005 Golden Lot , honoring the Association of German Surveying Engineers
• 2006 Elisabeth Mann Borgese Sea Prize , Honorary Prize
• 2006 Alpine Prize , commitment to the protection of the Alpine region ( Alpine Convention )
• 2007 Adam Smith Prize for market-based environmental policy
• 2007 Honorary doctorate from the TU Bergakademie Freiberg
• 2007 Great Silver Medal of Honor with the Star for Services to the Republic of Austria
• 2008 Awarded the Hermann Ehlers Prize ( Hermann Ehlers Foundation in Kiel)
• 2008 German sustainability award for his life's work
• 2009 “Dialog award for good deeds”, special award, Diocese of Münster and the diocese newspaper Kirche + Leben
• 2009 “Most bicycle-friendly personality”, German bicycle award best for bike
• 2009 Tolerance Prize from the European Academy of Sciences and Arts
• 2009 Order of Honor of the City of Shanghai
• 2010 visiting professor at the Frank Loeb Institute of the University of Koblenz-Landau
• 2011 Honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Kaiserslautern
• 2011 Peter Wust Prize for the promotion of European culture and European unification (awarded by the Catholic Academy Trier and Christian Adult Education Merzig )
• 2011 honorary citizen of the city of Höxter
• 2011 Urban Mining Award
• 2012 Margravine Wilhelmine Prize of the City of Bayreuth
• 2012 Neumarkter Lammsbräu sustainability award
• 2013 Gerd Bliede Prize (PCV) ( Carnival Prize)
• 2015 German CSR Prize, (Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in companies, the Ludwig Erhard Foundation , laudation by Roland Tichy , chairman of the jury)
• 2015 Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia
• 2017 Bavarian Nature Conservation Prize from the Association for the Environment and Nature Conservation Germany
• 2018 Honorary doctorate from the University of Potsdam
• 2019 State Prize of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia
• 2019 Millennium Prize from the aid organization CARE Germany

literature

• Felix Butzlaff : Disasters need experts? Ecology and environmental politics with Klaus Töpfer and Matthias Platzeck as political side entrants. Tectum-Verlag, Marburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-8288-9904-9 .
• "Our future: A conversation about the world after Fukushima (Klaus Töpfer, Ranga Yogeshwar)", Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-62922-8 .

See also

• Cabinet Vogel III
• Cabinet Kohl III
• Cabinet Kohl IV
• Cabinet Kohl V

Web links

Commons : Klaus Töpfer  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Biography at the German Bundestag
• Literature by and about Klaus Töpfer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Klaus Töpfer: Open questions and scientific challenges in development and environmental policy. Inaugural speech on the occasion of the award of the honorary professorship, Tübingen November 11, 2005. Tübingen discussion article no. 301 (PDF, 175 kB) ( Memento from June 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive )

Interviews

• Of course, we can not cope with a country climate change , interview with Stefan Detjen on 28 June 2012 as part of the series witnesses talking of Germany radio .
• Peter Unfried and Harald Welzer : The perfection of the prosperity lie: How do you get conservatives to do serious climate policy, Klaus Töpfer? In: taz.FUTURZWEI . January 30, 2020 (Interview with Klaus Töpfer). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ nationales-begleitgremium.de: press release
2. ↑ CDU is looking for a replacement for Klaus Töpfer , article from January 4, 2006 by Ulrich Zawatka-Gerlach on tagesspiegel.de
3. ↑ UNEP Executive Director Klaus Töpfer also Director General of the UN Office in Nairobi , UNRIC press release of February 9, 1998
4. ↑ Board of Directors . Institute for Transformative Sustainability Research. Archived from the original on March 9, 2018. Retrieved March 9, 2018.
5. ^ Jury of the IKU ( Memento from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). Website of the Innovation Prize for Climate and Environment IKU, accessed on March 3, 2016
6. ↑ Töpfer considers mistrust to be "more than understandable" , Klaus Töpfer in conversation with Martin Zagatta, interview on Deutschlandfunk on March 26, 2011, seen on March 27, 2011
7. ↑ Steering Committee . Raw material forum. Archived from the original on March 12, 2018. Retrieved March 9, 2018.
8. ^ DGVN Presidium
9. ^ German Foundation for World Population (DSW): "Who we are" , accessed on September 5, 2016.
10. ^ German Institute for Development Policy : Dirk Messner and Klaus Töpfer head the German Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN Germany). Press release of May 23, 2014. Accessed July 14, 2014.
11. ↑ Winners of the Great Binding Prize for Nature Conservation and Environmental Protection on the website of the Binding Foundation, Liechtenstein, accessed on March 27, 2011.
12. ↑ Endowed Professorship 2004 on the website of Johannes Gutenberg University Main, as seen on March 27, 2011
13. ^ The Christopher Ernest Barthel Jr Award . International Union of Air Pollution Prevention and Environmental Protection Associations. Retrieved March 9, 2018.
14. ^ First German Alpine Prize for Klaus Töpfer. cipra.de, November 30, 2006, accessed March 3, 2016 . 
15. ^ Adam Smith Prize for market-based environmental policy . Website of the Ecological-Social Market Economy forum. Retrieved October 7, 2019.
16. ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)
17. ↑ best for bike 2009. (PDF; 54 kB) March 6, 2009, archived from the original on January 20, 2013 ; Retrieved January 7, 2012 . 
18. ↑ Lord Mayor Han Zheng awards Klaus Töpfer the Order of Honor of the City of Shanghai . ( Memento from July 8, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Website of the German Academic Center of Tongji University, November 6, 2009, accessed on March 27, 2011.
19. ↑ Homepage (news) of the Kathol. Academy Trier
20. ↑ Hoexter_wuerdigt_Toepfers_Lebenswerk
21. ↑ Urban Mining Award to Prof. Töpfer
22. ↑ Press release of the city on the award ceremony 2012 ( Memento from July 31, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
23. ↑ https://www.sonntags-report.de/cms/front_content.php?idcat=45&idart=1547
24. ↑ Laudation to potter
25. ↑ Honoring the University of Potsdam. Klaus Töpfer receives an honorary doctorate. Potsdam Latest News , April 11, 2018, accessed April 15, 2018 .