Prof. Dr Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker

Past Chairman, Bundestag Environment Committee; Honorary President of the Club of Rome

Prof. Dr Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker is Honorary President of the Club of Rome and former Dean of the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He graduated in physics in Hamburg and got his PhD in biology from the University of Freiburg in 1968. During the 1970s he was professor of biology at Essen University and president of the University in Kassel, before taking up the post of Director at the UN Centre for Science and Technology in New York. From 1984 to 1991 he was the Director of the Institute for European Environment Policy in Bonn, Paris and London and from 1991 to 2000 Prof. von Weizsäcker was the President of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy. From 1998 to 2005 he was a member of the German Bundestag and chaired its Environment Committee (2002-2005). He is the author of many books including Factor Five and was honoured with the German Environment Prize in 2008.

He is a Honorary Councillor of the World Future Council.