The 16th Inductees

Shinkai Makoto(Born in 1973), Japan
（Animation Director）

In 2002, he made his commercial debut with the independently produced short film“Voices of a Distant Star. The 2016 film“Your Name”became a massive hit, and sparked a social phenomenon, becoming the first animated movie to win the Screenplay of the Year and Award for Excellence in Direction at the 40th Japan Academy Film Prize.

His 2019 film“Weathering With You”depicts youths whose lives are at the mercy of fate against the backdrop of extreme weather, and received the Social Impact Award (Agency for Cultural Affairs) in 2020, an award presented to works that significantly influence people’s behavior. The film also won Animation of the Year and the Outstanding Achievement in Music award at the 43rd Japan Academy Film Prize (2020) and was selected as Japan’s entry for the best international feature film category at the 92nd Academy Awards (2020).

Furthermore,“Suzume”(2022) captures contemporary landscapes across Japan under the theme of disaster and memory. It was selected for the competition section of the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival (2023) and nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the 81st Golden Globe Awards (2024), earning high acclaim worldwide.

In addition, the meticulous depiction of landscapes that runs throughout Shinkai’s works encourages awareness of environmental change and provides an opportunity for people around the world to rediscover their personal connection with the natural environment around them.

Debra Roberts(Born in1961), Republic of South Africa
（Honorary Professor: School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal/Professor Willem Schermerhorn Chair in Open Science from a Majority World Perspective Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, University of Twente）

She has worked at the science-policy-practice interface in the fields of biodiversity planning and management, climate change adaptation and mitigation and sustainable development and resilience at local and international levels and influenced the climate change and development debate at multiple scales.

She headed the Sustainable and Resilient City Initiatives Unit and Environmental Planning and Climate Protection Department in eThekwini Municipality (South Africa) between 1994 and 2024. In 2015, she was selected as a lead author of Chapter 8 (Urban Areas) of Working Group II’s contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). During the Sixth 　Assessment Cycle (2015–2023), she served as Co-Chair of Working Group II (Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability), becoming the first African woman from Africa to hold this position.

These activities led to her inclusion in a list of the World’s 100 Most Influential People in Climate Policy iIn 2019 and 2022/23. At present, sShe has held a number of advisory roles, for example in the Global Commission on Adaptation; United Cities and Local Governments; ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability; the United Nations Secretary General’s Climate Summit; Global Commission for SDG Urban Finance; the WMO World Weather Research Programme; UN-Habitat and UNEP.

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