| Klaus Töpfer | |||||||||||||
| Office1: | 4th Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme | ||||||||||||
| 1Namedata1: | Kofi Annan | ||||||||||||
| Term Start1: | 15 January 1998 | ||||||||||||
| Term End1: | 31 March 2006 | ||||||||||||
| Predecessor1: | Elizabeth Dowdeswell | ||||||||||||
| Successor1: | Achim Steiner | ||||||||||||
| Office2: | Minister for Regional Planning, Building and Urban Development | ||||||||||||
| Chancellor2: | Helmut Kohl | ||||||||||||
| Term Start2: | 17 November 1994 | ||||||||||||
| Term End2: | 14 January 1998 | ||||||||||||
| Predecessor2: | Irmgard Schwaetzer | ||||||||||||
| Successor2: | Eduard Oswald | ||||||||||||
| Office3: | Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Reactor Security | ||||||||||||
| Chancellor3: | Helmut Kohl | ||||||||||||
| Term Start3: | 22 April 1987 | ||||||||||||
| Term End3: | 17 November 1994 | ||||||||||||
| Predecessor3: | Walter Wallmann | ||||||||||||
| Successor3: | Angela Merkel
| ||||||||||||
| Birth Name: | Klaus Töpfer | ||||||||||||
| Birth Date: | 29 July 1938 | ||||||||||||
| Birth Place: | Waldenburg/Schlesien, Gau Silesia, Germany (now Wałbrzych, Poland) | ||||||||||||
| Death Place: | Munich, Bavaria, Germany | ||||||||||||
| Residence: | Höxter | ||||||||||||
| Children: | 3 | ||||||||||||
| Party: | Christian Democratic Union (1972–2024) | ||||||||||||
| Alma Mater: | University of Münster | ||||||||||||
Klaus Töpfer (29 July 1938 – 8 June 2024) was a German politician (CDU) and environmental politics expert. From 1998 to 2006 he was executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Töpfer was born in Waldenburg, Silesia. He studied economics in Mainz, Frankfurt and Münster. In 1968 he earned his doctorate at the University of Münster.[1] Töpfer died on 8 June 2024, at the age of 85.[2]
In 1971, Töpfer was appointed Head of Planning and Information of the Federal State of Saarland, a post he held until 1978. During that time, he also served as a visiting professor at the Academy of Administrative Sciences in Speyer, and consulted several countries on development policy, among them Egypt, Brazil and Jordan. He spent the following year at the University of Hannover as Professor and Director of the Institute for Spatial Research and Planning.
In 1985, Töpfer became State Minister for the Environment and Health in the government of Minister President Bernhard Vogel of Rhineland-Palatinate.In 1987, Töpfer became Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety under Chancellor Helmut Kohl. During his time in office, Germany established the Federal Office for Radiation Protection as a response to the Chernobyl disaster. From 1994 to 1998 he served as Federal Minister for Regional Planning, Civil Engineering and Urban Development. He was member of the Bundestag from 1990 to 1998 and member of the Steering Committee of the CDU from 1992 to 1998.
In 1998, Töpfer was appointed Under Secretary General of the United Nations, General director of the United Nations office in Nairobi and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme. Among the milestones of his eight-year tenure are a number of important environmental agreements, including the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. Töpfer was also closely involved in behind-the-scenes negotiations in support of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. In June 2006 he was succeeded in this office by Achim Steiner. As director of UNEP, he had a key role in gauging and attempting to remedy the environmental costs of the 2004 Asian tsunami.
In 2009 Töpfer was appointed founding director of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) which performs research between climate problems and sustainable economics. This institute is located at Potsdam, Germany. The institute's funding is provided by the federal government of Germany Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Germany).
Töpfer was rumored as a possible successor to the German presidency after Christian Wulff's resignation.[3] He later served as co-chairman of the Federal Government’s Ethics Commission on a Safe Energy Supply.
From 2013 Töpfer headed the project "DEMOENERGY – The Transformation of the Energy System as the Engine for Democratic Innovations"[4] together with Claus Leggewie and Patrizia Nanz (both Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities Essen, Germany). In 2016, the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) appointed Töpfer as co-chairman (alongside Juan Somavia) of an Independent Team of Advisors on positioning the UN development system for the Sustainable Development Goals.
In 2018, Energy Community appointed Töpfer to serve as mediator in an energy dispute between Kosovo and Serbia.[5] [6]