Green Cross International is founded by Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.
During a speech to the World Forum in Moscow, Gorbachev proposed to found an international Green Cross, which offers aid to states in ecological problems. During his years in office, Gorbachev spoke repeatedly about the mutual connection between threats to the earth and her inhabitants, shaped by nuclear and chemical armament, non-sustainable development, and human-caused degradation of our ecosystems. According to him, the world needed an organization which would apply the medical emergency response model of the International Red Cross to ecological issues and would advance solutions for ecological problems which transcend national borders. This was the inception of Green Cross.
