Full coverage: World Environment Day

Award-winning actress Michelle Yeoh is on the campaign trail for the planet. From Chengdu to Beijing, she is insisting we have the means to protect the environment and end poverty and hunger. 

Michelle Yeoh

In her current role as Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Yeoh got to embrace a pair of very cuddly fellow ambassadors at China’s Panda Base near Chengdu in the western province of Sichuan.

“UNDP has teamed up with Chengdu Panda Base in China to designate these two panda cubs as the first-ever Animal Ambassadors for global goals. Together with them, we could help raise awareness for the goals around the world,” Yeoh said.

The U.N. chose the panda twins to stand for the world’s diminishing wildlife and loss of biodiversity after adopting an ambitious new set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals to protect the environment, end poverty and hunger, and advance equality.

Yeoh is inviting people to take part in the UNDP's current Global Panda-Naming Campaign.

Pandas in Panda base.

“Well, to make the global goals a success, we need the participation of every one, we need all of you to be united to help us to achieve these goals. And it can be done if every single person participates in the global goals,” Yeoh said. 

“And I’m very, very proud to be one of the goodwill ambassadors, simply because the goals are achievable; we have the technology, we have the sustainability, to be able to do that. But we need all of you.” 

On Monday, Yeoh also witnessed the UNDP’s unveiling of a new fuel-cell bus in Beijing to promote clean-energy transportation.