He is not as well known as former US vice president Al Gore, but among green campaigners, no one has a bigger role in tackling climate change than Ma Jun. As China’s economic growth races on at breakneck speed and with more dirty, coal-burning power plants coming on line each year, the world’s most populous nation will soon overtake the US as the biggest greenhouse gas emitter.

Ma, 39, has emerged as the powerful voice of a budding green movement that is forcing industry and China’s tightly run state to be more accountable for the long-term consequences of their rush to get rich.

He founded the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, which is among those leading the charge to clean up the air and rivers of China, a monumental task. Pollution is leaking beyond its borders. Sand storms caused by desertification blast across the Korea Peninsula and Japan all the way over the Pacific to the US. And as the dump for 50 billion tonnes of effluent annually, the rivers’ toxic discharges threaten marine life hundreds of miles beyond China’s seas.

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