Nicholas Stern, an eminent economist and outspoken proponent of moving to a low-carbon economy, has been named the winner of the 2013 Stephen Schneider Award for Climate Science Communication.

The $10,000 award is named for former Stanford Woods Institute Senior Fellow and renowned climate scientist Stephen Schneider. It is given by Climate One, the sustainability initiative of the Commonwealth Club of California, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public forum in San Francisco.

The award jury praised Stern for “his ability to assemble crucial information from earth scientists, biologists, technologists and social scientists, to combine this information in way that yields important climate-policy conclusions, and to communicate these findings widely and effectively to the public.”

Stern is chairman of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science and President of the British Academy. He authored a highly influential 2006 report on the economics of climate change, which was commissioned by the U.K. Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer. It concluded that the problem was one of risk management on an immense and unprecedented scale, and that the costs of inaction were far greater than the costs of action.

Stern “exemplifies the rare ability to be both an extraordinary analyst of climate policy options and a powerful communicator of the key policy findings,” a Climate One press release stated.

This is the third year the award has been presented. It is given to a natural or social scientist who has made “extraordinary scientific contributions and communicated that knowledge to a broad public in a clear and compelling fashion.”

Stephen Schneider was internationally recognized for research, policy analysis and outreach in climate change. In 1975 he founded the interdisciplinary journal, Climatic Change, and continued to serve as its editor-in-chief until his death. He was honored in 1992 with a MacArthur Fellowship for his ability to integrate and interpret the results of global climate research through public lectures, seminars, classroom teaching, environmental assessment committees, media appearances, congressional testimonies and research collaboration with colleagues. He consulted with federal agencies and/or White House staff in the Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama administrations.

Schneider was an author for all four assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program. He was one of four "generations" of IPCC authors honored for their work when the IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore.

Stern will receive the award in San Francisco on Wednesday, Dec. 11 at the Commonwealth Club of California. The award is underwritten by Tom R. Burns, Nora Machado, Michael Haas and ClimateWorks Foundation.