Pierre-Marc Johnson

Dr. Pierre-Marc Johnson, a former premier of the province of Quebec, is a medical doctor and lawyer, was recently heralded as "an incredibly well-respected environmentalist". Dr. Johnson was appointed to lead the Canadian government's advisory team for the United Nations conference on climate change, held in Bali, Indonesia, in December 2007.

He is Senior Counsel with the Canadian law firm Heenan Blaikie, he has taught law at McGill University and lectures in various fora, and participates regularly in many UN negotiations. He also does research at the McGill Center for Medicine, Ethics and Law on the corporate management of environmental issues and liability. From 1976 to 1987, he served on the Quebec National Assembly. He is Vice-Chair of the Prime Minister's National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy of Canada and chairs its Foreign Policy committee. He was a Special Advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) and is an advisor to the North American Commission on Environmental Cooperation.

Dr. Johnson is co-author of The Environment and NAFTA: Understanding and Implementing the New Continental Law (Island Press, Washington DC, 1996) and has published many essays and articles on development in the context of globalisation. Dr. Johnson frequently writes journal articles and speaks at conferences and seminars dealing with environmental and economic issues. In his article on "The State of the Earth on the Eve of the Rio Summit", he outlined the new economic and environmental realities facing citizens in the next century.