The Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity, awarded in Portugal, recognizes people or groups who have made impactful, novel, or innovative contributions to fighting or adapting to the reality of climate change around the world. It is a one million euro ($1.15 million) award to aid the efforts of its winners and extend their reach.
For 2020, the winner is Swedish activism celebrity Greta Thunberg.
The teenager won for the way she “has been able to mobilise younger generations for the cause of climate change and her tenacious struggle to alter a status quo that persists,” according to Jorge Sampaio, chair of the prize jury for this year.
Thunberg called the prize “more money than I can begin to imagine,” but has no intention of keeping any of it.
“I’m extremely honoured to receive the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity.” Thunberg tweeted on July 20th. “We’re in a climate emergency, and my foundation will as quickly as possible donate all the prize money… to support organisations and projects that are fighting for a sustainable world, defending nature, and supporting people already facing the worst impacts of the climate- and ecological crisis – particularly those living in the Global South.”
So far, she has announced that 100,000 euro each are going to the “SOS Amazonia” campaign, to help deal with the impact of COVID-19 in poor communities in the rural Amazon, and to the Stop Ecocide Foundation, which campaigns to make ecological damage resulting in genocide-like conditions an international crime. Her foundation will continue to make decisions about where to donate the rest of the windfall in the next few weeks.
Just a few days before receiving this award, Thunberg and a number of other young climate activists used their platform to launch a climate emergency appeal to EU leaders, supported heavily by the European science community.
Source: The Guardian
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