This year’s winners include a Japanese coal fighter, a Vietnamese protector of pangolins and a Peruvian forest defender

For more than 20 years, Kimiko Hirata has fought a long and often lonely battle against coal in Japan, but for the first time the climate activist believes the dirtiest fossil fuel is on the run, not just in her country but across the world.

Like several other winners of this year’s Goldman environmental prize, the frontline campaigner sees a shift in the political winds that has created a rare – and perhaps final – opportunity to reduce emissions and rebuild the planet’s natural life support systems.