Frankfurt/Main. The German Environment Award of the German Environment Foundation, Osnabrück, Europe"s largest foundation for the environment, was presented for the sixth time today. It is Europe"s best endowed environmental prize, worth one million deutschmarks, and was presented by Federal Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin in the Old Opera House in Frankfurt am Main. The joint winners were the Climate Research Working Group at the Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, led by Prof. Lennart Bengtsson (aged 63, Sweden), Prof. Hartmut Graßl (58) and Prof. Klaus Hasselmann (67); and Georg Salvamoser (48), the owner and manager of a solar energy company in Freiburg. Bundesbank President Professor Hans Tietmeyer, as Chairman of the Foundation"s Board of Trustees, expressed his appreciation of their achievements as follows: "Your example shows that creativity and innovation are the key to solving current problems. And that is by no means restricted to environmental matters."

Addressing an audience of some 1400 in the Old Opera House in Frankfurt, Mr. Tietmeyer pointed out that the subject of this year"s award was one of the greatest environmental challenges of our times - protection of the climate. He noted that there were serious indications that anthropogenic causes are one of the major factors in climate change, causing considerable disturbance and damage in many parts of the world. And even if there were not yet conclusive proof of this assumption, reasonable suspicion would be enough to justify doing everything possible to pursue research into the subject and to combat recognised causes of climatic change.

It was important, said Mr. Tietmeyer, to reduce energy consumption particularly in the western industrial nations, and to increase the proportion of renewable energy sources. And this need not involve giving up prosperity. The most important thing, he said, was to use innovation to make more intelligent and effective use of energy. He referred to the funds invested by the Foundation - with an overall volume of 1.3 billion deutschmarks paid out for over 3000 projects since the beginning of its funding activities, the Foundation had put nearly 200 million marks into some 400 climate protection projects.

Following a welcome address by Karl Starzacher, Finance Minister of the Land of Hesse, the eulogy for the award winners was held by Prof. Reinhard Zellner, a member of the Jury for the German Environment Award

He noted that the selection of these scientists for the award meant that the Foundation was honouring their outstanding contributions to climate research, with the recognised focus they have established for this discipline in Germany. Their efforts, he said, had helped climate research to achieve internationally acknowledged expertise. They had made an important contribution to further raising people"s awareness of the responsibility of human beings for their environment. This had reinforced the scientific basis of the theory of anthropogenic influence on the climate, thus improving the chances of implementation of the United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change.

Professor Zellner referred to the work of Professor Hasselmann in developing one of the most powerful climate models in the world. A convincing example of his scientific work was, for example, the description and prediction of El Niño events, that is natural fluctuations of the temperature distribution of the ocean surface in the Pacific. He highlighted Professor Bengtsson"s major achievements in regional climate research. The experience gained by Professor Bengtsson, together with the oceanic models of Professor Hasselmann, had considerably reinforced the scientific evidence of anthropogenic influence on the climate. Professor Zellner characterised Professor Graßl as another internationally recognised atmosphere and climate scientist, whose work had enormously widened understanding of the physics of the climatic processes, by developing measuring techniques for temperature flow in the atmosphere and oceans, by remote survey work and process studies of the clouds.

Professor Zellner went on to honour Georg Salvamoser"s work as a solar energy entrepreneur, taking on a high degree of risk going well into the private domain in order to open up new opportunities in the photovoltaic market in Germany. At a time when the "major companies" in the industry had pulled out for reasons of cost, he built up his medium-sized company in Freiburg without state subsidies, to establish a highly modern production plant for standard photovoltaic modules. The fact that new production capacities had been created in Germany and that more were still being created was due not least to the entrepreneurial initiative of Georg Salvamoser.

Professor Zellner noted that the model of sustainable energy utilisation had achieved worldwide recognition, but that it was still far from clear how the triangle of environmental, economic and social sustainability was to be organised. Balancing this equation would be vitally dependent on more efficient and economical energy consumption and the use of renewable energy sources. Attainment of this target would require the establishment of appropriate motivation and innovation right now. The challenge, he said, was to take the first steps in this direction. And the solar energy entrepreneur Georg Salvamoser was someone who had already taken up this challenge.

In his speech of thanks, Professor Klaus Ferdinand Hasselmann stressed that it was not possible to achieve successful research into the climate - one of the most complex of all known systems - without comprehensive international cooperation. International climate research, he said, had made it possible to achieve the first concrete political steps towards worldwide reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, but science was expected to produce further improvement in its models so as to permit further intensification of these efforts. There was a need for more accurate impact analysis not only for the global climate, but also for individual regions that are particularly affected. This should give special attention to changes in intensity and frequency of extreme events such as storms, heat waves, droughts and floods, and to forecasting such events.

Professor Hasselmann went on to comment that, despite tremendous progress in recent years, climate research was still in its infancy. At the same time, it was essential to assume responsibility for taking political action on a prophylactic basis, even before science could give an exact prediction of all the effects of human intervention in the climatic system. Thus a carefully coordinated climatic protection strategy could be introduced step by step and could be adapted to new scientific knowledge on an ongoing basis: "I hope and believe that climate research policy will show long-term continuity and far-sightedness, in keeping with the long memory of the climate, and thus support negotiations for effective international climate protection policy."

Georg Salvamoser noted in his speech of thanks that he saw the award of this environment prize as an appeal to take the next entrepreneurial steps towards a solar energy economy. He referred to the tremendous progress made by researchers and developers with renewable energies in recent years. He commented that many of the relevant products were available to industry in fully developed form, and that completely new and innovative steps were now possible thanks to changes in European energy legislation with the abandonment of monopoly structures.

The challenge, he said, was to provide electricity from renewable energy sources at reasonable prices in all locations. This would require not only the appropriate political framework conditions, but above all it would require allies, that is people in the industrial sector who showed commitment to this goal. Every individual, he said, could make their contribution by purchasing electricity from renewable sources, both for private and business use. "It can be done", he said. "Where there is a will there is a way. Just do it!" It was perfectly feasible, he emphasised, to combine environmental and business goals. "It is up to you to do it, both as energy consumers and as investors."