Leading players at Paris Summit awarded Ewald von Kleist peace award in recognition of their part in securing climate treaty, highlighting growing link between global warming and national security
The UN's top climate official Christiana Figueres and former French foreign secretary and COP 21 president Laurent Fabius have been awarded the Ewald von Kleist peace award for their work in securing an international deal on climate change in Paris in December.
The award, which honours "eminent personalities with an outstanding record in contributing to international peace and conflict resolution" was presented to Figueres and Fabius at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.
The move was heralded as growing recognition of climate change as a "risk multiplier" of security threats. Last month the World Econmic Forum's influential Global Risks report named environmental risk as the top threat facing the world economy for the first time since its launch in 2006.
Meanwhile, in May President Obama said global warming poses an "immediate risk" to national security, while commentators have repeatedly suggested the conflict in Syria may have been intensified due to climate-related droughts in the region.
Previous winners of the prize have included American diplomat Dr Henry Kissinger and American politician Joseph Lieberman.
This article is part of BusinessGreen's Road to Paris hub, hosted in association with PwC.
