Klaus Töpfer

Klaus Töpfer was born in Waldenburg, Silesia (now Wałbrzych, Poland); his family fled to West Germany as refugees at the end of World War II. He earned a doctorate in economics from the University of Münster in 1968, joining the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and specializing in regional planning and economic policy.

In 1987, Chancellor Helmut Kohl appointed Töpfer as West Germany's Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. A charismatic, action-oriented minister, Töpfer famously swam across the Rhine in a wetsuit in 1988 to demonstrate its improving water quality following the Sandoz chemical disaster. He pioneered Germany's packaging ordinance that created the "Green Dot" (Grüner Punkt) dual recycling system. From 1998 to 2006, Töpfer served as Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi, Kenya, playing a critical role in negotiating the Kyoto Protocol and placing environmental sustainability at the core of global development policy.