German Environment Prize Honors Engineer and Climate Lawyer
The German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU) presented the German Environment Prize in Aachen on October 25 to an engineer and a lawyer, with Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier handing over the award, which carries a total of €500,000.
The prize money is one of the highest in Europe in the environmental field. Steinmeier praised the two winners as role models in protecting the environment. "They show that every single person can make a difference," he said.
The winners
Engineer Klaus Vossenkaul from the Aachen region was honoured for his innovative developments in membrane filtration technology for wastewater treatment in sewage plants. Hamburg lawyer Roda Verheyen, known as "Germany's most important climate lawyer", received the prize for enforcing legal requirements for greater environmental and climate justice.
Among other things, she obtained a ruling that emitters can be held liable for climate damage. In 2021 the Federal Constitutional Court upheld a complaint brought by Verheyen, ruling that inadequate climate protection violates the freedom rights of future generations.
DBU Secretary General Alexander Bonde called the winners "encouragers who show how things can go forward positively". He said they embody "attitude, perseverance and innovative strength with a clear compass in environmental and climate protection".
Steinmeier's appeal
Steinmeier urged that climate protection be given high priority despite all "day-to-day political trends". "We know that we must question our way of living and doing business. Why? To leave our children and grandchildren a livable planet," he said.
Last summer, he said, showed what dramatic consequences global warming has for everyone: burning forests, shipping almost halted by low water levels and 16,000 additional deaths according to the Robert Koch Institute. "The fever curve of our planet clearly points upward," Steinmeier said, adding that climate change hits Europe especially hard: "our continent is warming more than twice as fast as all others".
Steinmeier, who leaves office early next year, said the prize had grown closer to his heart "from year to year" and that handing it over for the last time fills him "with a little wistfulness". His successor is to be elected by the Federal Convention on January 30. It consists of the 630 members of the Bundestag and an equal number of delegates from the states.
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