Our planet is changing at an unprecedented rate.
Melting ice caps, wildfires, floods, droughts, and other intensifying weather patterns are regional symptoms of a warming planet. Established science is clear: climate trends over the past century are indisputably caused by human activities. The extraction and burning of fossil fuels to power modern societies has resulted in the preeminent challenge of our time: climate change.
We are the first generation to experience that our actions have had consequences for our climate. We are probably the last generation that can still do something about it.
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Goldman Prize Winners awarded for Climate & Energy
Sarah Finch
Sarah Finch and the Weald Action Group led a tireless campaign against oil drilling in southeastern England for over a decade, persevering through five years of escalating court battles against one oil development in Surrey until the coalition secured a Supreme Court ruling, in June 2024, that finally forced its shutdown. The resulting “Finch ruling” states that authorities must consider the downstream impacts that fossil fuels will have on the global climate before granting permission to extract them. This legal precedent has already stopped subsequent fossil fuel extraction projects and other industrial development across the UK and could inform EU policy going forward.
Borim Kim
Activist Borim Kim and her organization, Youth 4 Climate Action, won the first successful youth-led climate litigation in Asia. In August 2024, the South Korean Constitutional Court found the government’s climate policy to be in violation of the constitutional rights of future generations, mandating the creation of legally binding emissions reduction targets from 2031-2049 to meet the country’s pledge to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The historic decision is a watershed moment for the climate change movement in Asia. If implemented, it has the potential to avoid more than 1,500 million tons of carbon emissions—equivalent to the annual emissions of approximately 500 coal-fired power plants—over the next 25 years.
Murrawah Maroochy Johnson
Murrawah Maroochy Johnson blocked development of the Waratah coal mine, which would have accelerated climate change in Queensland, destroyed the nearly 20,000-acre Bimblebox Nature Refuge, added 1.58 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere over its lifetime, and threatened Indigenous rights and culture. Murrawah’s case, which overcame a 2023 appeal, set a precedent that enables other First Nations people to challenge coal projects by linking climate change to human and Indigenous rights.
Andrea Vidaurre
Andrea Vidaurre’s grassroots leadership persuaded the California Air Resources Board to adopt, in the spring of 2023, two historic transportation regulations that significantly limit trucking and rail emissions. The new regulations—the In-Use Locomotive Rule and the California Advanced Clean Fleets Rule—include the nation’s first emission rule for trains and a path to 100% zero emissions for freight truck sales by 2036. The groundbreaking regulations—a product of Andrea’s policy work and community organizing—will substantially improve air quality for millions of Californians while accelerating the country’s transition to zero-emission vehicles.
Tero Mustonen
Since April 2018, Tero Mustonen led the restoration of 62 severely degraded former industrial peat mining and forestry sites throughout Finland—totaling 86,000 acres—and transformed them into productive, biodiverse wetlands and habitats. Rich in organic matter, peatlands are highly effective carbon sinks; according to the IUCN, peatlands are the largest natural carbon stores on Earth. Roughly one-third of Finland’s surface area is made up of peatlands.
Marjan Minnesma
In a groundbreaking victory, Marjan Minnesma leveraged public input and a unique legal strategy to secure a successful ruling against the Dutch government, requiring it to enact specific preventive measures against climate change. In December 2019, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that the government had a legal obligation to protect its citizens from climate change and ordered it, by the end of 2020, to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 25% below 1990 levels. The Netherlands’ Supreme Court decision marks the first time that citizens succeeded in holding their government accountable for its failure to protect them from climate change.
Partners in Climate & Energy
The Goldman Prize is honored to partner with a variety of environmental organizations around the world, each of them united in the goal of protecting our planet. From our nominating partners to global organizations to grassroots NGOs led by Prize winners, they are all essential parts of the environmental community.
