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Arunabha Ghosh Honoured With 2022 Asia Game Changer Award for His Contribution to Climate Change and Sustainability

New Delhi, 28 October 2022: Dr Arunabha Ghosh, internationally recognised public policy expert and CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), one of Asia’s leading think tanks, was honored with the 2022 Asia Game Changer Award in New York yesterday. The Award is in recognition of his contribution to climate change and sustainability issues in India and across the world. Each year, the Asia Society presents the Game Changer Awards to leaders who have made outstanding contributions to the future of Asia and the world. 

Some of the other recipients of the ninth annual edition of the Awards include Michael Bloomberg (former New York City Mayor), Alok Sharma (President of COP26), Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner (poet and climate activist from the Marshall Islands), Ma Jun (Director of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs), Nanette Medved-Po (Founder and chairwoman of the HOPE and PCX Groups), Raj Shah (President of the Rockefeller Foundation),and Janet Yang (President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences). 

Speaking at the Award ceremony, Dr Arunabha Ghosh, CEO, CEEW, said, “I am truly humbled to receive this honour. Climate change is only the second greatest challenge facing humanity. The greatest challenge is a lack of empathy, a lack of understanding of fellow humans of other colours, cultures, genders, and geographies. To fight climate change, we must walk in the shoes of the vulnerable. We must create the conditions from which common ground can be found. Further, to solve wicked problems, we must build institutions more proximate to the people whose problems we claim to understand.”

Dr Ghosh has worked as an advisor for various governments, industries, civil society and international organisations worldwide. He currently serves on the Government of India’s G20 Finance Track Advisory Group and advises the Sherpa Track for India’s G20 Presidency in 2022-23. In 2022, the UN Secretary-General appointed him to the High-level Expert Group on the Credibility and Accountability of Net-Zero Announcements by Non-State Actors. Since 2018, on the UN Secretary-General’s nomination, Dr Ghosh has served on the UN Committee for Development Policy. Arunabha is also a member of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water. In 2020, the Government of India appointed him Co-Chair of the energy, environment and climate change track for India’s Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP2020). He was also appointed the Co-Chair of the T20 Task Force on climate and energy for Indonesia’s G20 Presidency in 2022.

He further said, “It is in the Global South where most of the people reside, where their hopes and aspirations need to be kindled, and where the action is unfolding. My dream is that the daughter of a coal miner born in 2022, when India is celebrating 75 years of independence, becomes a clean energy billionaire when independent India turns 100.” 

Previous Asia Game Changer Award winners include His Highness the Aga Khan; Alibaba Founder Jack Ma; Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai; Tennis champion and advocate Naomi Osaka, the iconic architect I.M. Pei; former Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi; the great cellist YoYo Ma; among others.

More information on the Asia Game Changers and complete list of honourees at this link.

Contact: Riddhima Sethi (CEEW), [email protected]; Mihir Shah (CEEW), [email protected]