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Tobias Adrian, Financial Counselor and Director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department, International Monetary Fund



To Protect Financial Stability, Confront Climate Change

Tobias Adrian is the Financial Counsellor and Director of the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department. He leads the IMF’s work on financial sector surveillance, monetary and macroprudential policies, financial regulation, debt management, and capital markets. He also oversees capacity building activities in IMF member countries. Prior to joining the IMF, he was a Senior Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the Associate Director of the Research and Statistics Group. Adrian has taught at Princeton University and New York University, and has published extensively in economics and finance journals. He holds a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; an MSc from the London School of Economics; a Diploma from Goethe University Frankfurt; and a Maîtrise from Dauphine University Paris.


Baroness Catherine Ashton

Climate Diplomacy Demands Practical Partnerships

The Right Honourable Baroness Catherine Ashton served as the European Union's first High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy from 2009 to 2014. She earned wide praise as a negotiator, leading the P5+1 talks on Iran’s nuclear program and galvanizing agreement between Serbia and Kosovo. Previously, Baroness Ashton served as the first woman Commissioner for Trade in the European Commission and the first woman British European Commissioner. A Life Peer in the British House of Lords, she is a former nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, among other accolades. She served as a Distinguished Fellow at the Wilson Center in 2017.


H.E. Lolwah Al Khater, Assistant Foreign Minister and Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Qatar

Small States and Climate Change: The Case of Qatar

Her Excellency, Lolwah R M Al-Khater is the Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the State of Qatar. Previously, she was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Minister Plenipotentiary, and served as the Director of Planning and Quality at Qatar Tourism Authority and a Research Project Manager at Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. Outside of her official capacity, HE Al-Khater is a policy analyst, participating in conferences and multiple publications. She is the co-editor of the book, Policy-making in a Transformative State: the case of Qatar, and author of Educational Outputs and Labor Market Needs: A study on Labor Market Issues and methods of Addressing Them. HE Al-Khater holds a Master’s of Science in Computing and a Master’s of Arts in Public Policy. She is a PhD Candidate at the University of Oxford in the area of Oriental Studies.


Susan Biniaz, Senior Fellow for Climate Change, UN Foundation

“Multilateralism,” the Climate Challenge, and the (Greater Metropolitan) Paris Agreement

Susan Biniaz, a former Deputy Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State, worked on international environmental issues for many years and served as the lead U.S. climate lawyer from 1989 until early 2017. She is currently a Senior Fellow at the UN Foundation and a Senior Fellow and Lecturer at the Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. Since leaving government, she has also taught courses on international environmental law and the climate change negotiations at various law schools, including Columbia, Chicago, and Yale.


Patrick Bolton, Barbara and David Zalaznick Professor of Business, Columbia University

Financial Stability in the Age of Global and Systemic Ecological Risks (“Green Swans”)

Patrick Bolton is the Barbara and David Zalaznick Professor of Business at Columbia University and visiting Professor at Imperial College London. He is a Co-Director of the Center for Contracts and Economic Organization at the Columbia Law School, a past President of the American Finance Association, a Fellow of the Econometric Society (elected 1993), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (elected 2009), and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy (elected 2013). His areas of interest are in contract theory, corporate finance, corporate governance, banking, sovereign debt, political economy, law and economics and sustainable investing. He has written a leading graduate textbook on Contract theory with Mathias Dewatripont, MIT Press (2005) and among the books he has coedited are Sovereign wealth funds and long-term investing, with Frederic Samama and Joseph E Stiglitz, Columbia University Press (2011); and Coping with the climate crisis: mitigation policies and global coordination, with Rabah Aretzki, Karim El Aynaoui and Maurice Obstfeld, Columbia University Press (2018).


Sharon Burke, Senior Advisor, International Security Program and Resource Security Program, New America

The Solidarity America Needs

The Honorable Sharon E. Burke directs the Resource Security group at New America, which looks at the intersection of human security, prosperity, and natural resources. She also serves on New America's leadership team and is an advisor to the Future of War project. Before joining New America, Burke served in the Obama administration as the assistant secretary of defense for operational energy. Prior to her service at DoD, Burke held a number of senior U.S. government positions at the State Department and Pentagon. Outside of government, Burke has worked for several non-profit organizations, including as a vice president and senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. Burke publishes widely and is on a number of boards and advisory groups, including for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the National Science Foundation. She attended Williams College and Columbia University.


Maxine Burkett, Co-Founder and Senior Advisor, The Institute for Climate and Peace

Reorienting Perceptions of Climate Change, Migration & Displacement

Maxine Burkett is a Professor of Law at the William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaiʻi, co-founder and senior advisor to the Institute for Climate and Peace, and a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center. An international expert on the law and policy of climate change, she has presented her work in diverse areas of climate law throughout the United States and in West Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Caribbean. She is a member of the boards of The Climate Museum, ELAW, and Global Greengrants Fund, and serves as a member scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform, and the American Law Institute. Burkett earned her B.A. from Williams College and Exeter College, Oxford University, and her law degree from the University of California, Berkeley.


Mariam Traore Chazalnoël, Senior Expert in Migration, Environment and Climate Change, United Nations International Migration Agency

A Climate Crisis and a World on the Move: Implications for Migration Management

Mariam Traore Chazalnoël is a Senior Expert in Migration, Environment and Climate Change at the United Nations Migration Agency (IOM). She is French and Malian and is currently based in New York City. She specializes in global policy questions related to climate change and migration since 2013 and works to bring visibility to these topics in the global climate change and migration policy agendas. Chazalnoël has authored and edited a number of articles and publications on climate change and migration. She is a frequent speaker on these issues worldwide. Chazalnoël has been working with IOM since 2008 in Geneva, Bamako, and New York.


Jeff D. Colgan, Richard Holbrooke Associate Professor of Political Science

Climate Change, Grand Strategy, and International Order

Jeff D. Colgan is the Richard Holbrooke Associate Professor of Political Science at Brown University and Director of the Climate Solutions Lab at the Watson Institute of Public and International Affairs. His research focuses on international order, especially as it relates to energy and the environment. His forthcoming book Partial Hegemony: Oil Politics and International Order (Oxford University Press, October 2021) investigates how countries and other actors have been able to sustain meaningful international governing arrangements to solve tough problems, and uses that history to consider climate change. His previous book was Petro-Aggression: When Oil Causes War (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Prior to Brown University, he worked at McKinsey & Company, the World Bank, and American University. Professor Colgan spent the 2012-2013 academic year at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. 


Morgan Després, Deputy Head, Financial Stability Department, Banque de France

Financial Stability in the Age of Global and Systemic Ecological Risks (“Green Swans”)

Morgan Després is Deputy Head of the Financial Stability Department at the Banque de France and also serves as the Head of the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) Secretariat. He joined the Banque de France in 2005 and served in the Payment and Settlement Systems Department and as Deputy Head of the Macroprudential Division. Other professional experience includes a secondment as Deputy Head of the Financial Stability Unit within the French Treasury Department and technical assistance missions for the IMF. Després holds an MBA from ESSEC business school, graduated from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, and studied at the Harvard Extension School.


Daniel Farber, Sho Sato Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment (CLEE), at the University of California, Berkeley

State Governmental Leadership in U.S. Climate Policy

Daniel Farber is the Sho Sato Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment (CLEE), at the University of California, Berkeley. His scholarship focuses on the areas of constitutional law and environmental law and policy, particularly climate change. CLEE channels the expertise of the Berkeley Law community—faculty, staff, and students—into pragmatic, creative policy solutions to critical environmental and energy challenges. 


Andres Franzetti, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Risk Cooperative

Leverage the Insurance Industry to Drive Climate-Proof Development

Andres Franzetti is the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Risk Cooperative, where he leads overall strategy execution and business operations. As a dual-licensed insurance broker and Certified Risk Manager (CRM), Franzetti specializes in helping multi-national organizations address complex risks to increase their overall resiliency. Franzetti has experience across the full risk spectrum and works with organizations to address a myriad of risks, ranging from the de-risking of capital investments and overseas investments, to helping organizations build robust enterprise risk management frameworks. He is a recognized thought leader in the risk and cybersecurity domain and serves as an adjunct fellow for the American Security Project, a think-tank founded by former secretaries John Kerry and Chuck Hagel. Franzetti has spent more than 10 years in the financial services and advisory space. He is fluent in Spanish, conversant in Italian, and holds a BS from the University of Colorado at Boulder in journalism, advertising and marketing.


James T. Gathii, professor of law and the Wing-Tat Lee Chair in International Law, Loyola University Chicago School of Law

Without Centering Race, Identity, and Indigeneity, Climate Responses Miss the Mark

James T. Gathii is a professor of law and the Wing-Tat Lee Chair in International Law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. He sits on the board of editors of the American Journal of International Law, the Journal of African Law, and the Journal of International Trade Law and Policy. In June 2020, he was the Grotius Lecturer at the 2020 Virtual Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law. He is a founding member of the Third World Approaches to International Law, (TWAIL) Network, the Afronomicslaw.org blog on international economic issues as they relate to Africa and the Global South, and the African Journal of International Economic Law. He is widely published in the areas of Public International Law, International Trade Law, International Human Rights, Third World Approaches to International Law, and Comparative Constitutional. He is a graduate of the University of Nairobi, Kenya, and Harvard Law School.


Jack A. Goldstone, Virginia E. and John T. Hazel Professor of Public Policy, George Mason University

The Battle for Earth's Climate Will Be Fought in Africa

Jack A. Goldstone (PhD. Harvard) is Hazel Professor of Public Policy and a Fellow of the Mercatus Center of George Mason University. He is the author of Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (winner of the 1993 Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Award of the American Sociological Association), editor of Political Demography, and has authored or edited ten additional books and over 140 book chapters and journal articles on various aspects of population, political conflict and social change.   Winner of the Barrington Moore and Arnoldo Momigliano awards for scholarship, he has chaired a National Academy of Sciences study of USAID democracy assistance, and worked with the OECD and the U.S. State and Defense Departments on their strategies for fragile states. Goldstone blogs regularly on revolutions and world affairs at http://NewPopulationBomb.wordpress.com 


Noah Gordon, Project Manager, adelphi

The New Geopolitics of a Decarbonizing World

Noah Gordon is a Project Manager at adelphi in the field of climate diplomacy. He works at the intersection of climate policy, foreign and security policy, and geopolitics. He is also the climate editor at Berlin Policy Journal. He has written about politics and climate change for The Atlantic, New Statesman, the Centre for European Reform, Clean Energy Wire, and Euractiv.


Philip Gordon, Mary and David Boies Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy, Council on Foreign Relations

How Curbing Reliance on Fossil Fuels Will Change the World

Philip H. Gordon is the Mary and David Boies Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf Region, and Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs during the Obama administration.


Ambassador Thomas Greminger, former Secretary-General, OSCE

The Role of Multilateralism and Multi-level Governance: An Interview with OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger

Ambassador Thomas Greminger served as Secretary General of the OSCE from July 2017 to July 2020. Ambassador Greminger joined the diplomatic service of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) in 1990 and has held numerous senior management positions during his career. Prior to his appointment as OSCE Secretary General, he was Deputy Director General of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, overseeing an annual budget of USD 730 million and 900 staff in Bern and abroad. From 2010 to 2015, Ambassador Greminger was the Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the OSCE, serving as Chair of the Permanent Council during Switzerland’s 2014 OSCE Chairmanship. Prior to his assignment at the Permanent Delegation of Switzerland to the OSCE, Ambassador Greminger was Head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs’ Human Security Division, Switzerland’s competence centre for peace, human rights, and humanitarian and migration policy. Ambassador Greminger holds a PhD in history from the University of Zurich and the rank of Lieutenant Colonel (General Staff) in the Swiss Armed Forces. He has authored a number of publications on military history, conflict management, peacekeeping, development, and human rights. His mother tongue is German; he speaks fluent English and French, and has a working knowledge of Portuguese. In 2012, he was awarded the OSCE white ribbon for his long-standing support for gender equality.


Selwin Hart, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Climate Action and Assistant Secretary-General for the Climate Action Team, United Nations

Written Interview with Selwin Hart, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Climate Action & Financial Stability

Selwin Hart is the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Climate Action and Assistant Secretary-General for the Climate Action Team. In this role, he works to ensure enhanced levels of ambition on climate change, with a focus on Member State support, coalition-building, UN system engagement, and the public mobilization necessary to implement the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Hart was previously the Executive Director for the Caribbean region at the Inter-American Development Bank and Ambassador to the United States and the Organization of American States for Barbados. Throughout his career, Hart has served in several climate change leadership positions, including as a Climate Adviser for the Caribbean Development Bank, Chief Climate Change Negotiator for Barbados as well as the Coordinator and Lead Negotiator on Finance for the Alliance of Small Island Developing States (AOSIS). He was a member of the Kyoto Protocol Adaptation Fund Board from 2009 to 2010 and was elected by the United Nations General Assembly to serve as Vice-Chairman of the 2nd Committee of the United Nations General Assembly (Economic and Financial) during its 60th Session.


Hilda Heine, Member of Parliament and Former President, the Republic of the Marshall Islands

Displacement and Out-Migration: The Marshall Islands Experience 

Senator Hilda C. Heine, former President of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), is serving her third term as Member of Parliament (Nitijela) from the constituency of Aur Atoll Electoral District, RMI. She is the first female President of RMI and one of two women elected to the Nitijela following the 2019 election. Previously, Senator Heine was Minister of Education and served the Marshallese government in various capacities, including as President of the College of the Marshall Islands. She worked for the Pacific Resources for Education and Learning in Honolulu, Hawaii for ten years. A crusader for women’s rights, Senator Heine is a co-founder and advisor to Women United Together Marshall Islands. Under her leadership, the Pacific Women Leaders Coalition was formed in 2019. Senator Heine holds a BA from the University of Oregon, MA from the University of Hawaii, and EdD from the University of Southern California.


Dina Ionesco, Head of the Migration, Environment and Climate Change Division, United Nations International Migration Agency

A Climate Crisis and a World on the Move: Implications for Migration Management

Dina Ionesco is the Head of the Migration, Environment and Climate Change (MECC) Division at the United Nations Migration Agency (IOM). In this capacity, she oversees since 2015 IOM’s policies and programmes related to the nexus between migration, environment, and climate change. Ionesco is the co-author of the Atlas of Environmental Migration (2016) and of numerous articles and publications. She was awarded the ‘Inspirational woman working to protect the environment’ distinction, as part of the 2016 International Women’s Day, at the initiative of UN Environment, the Geneva Environment Network and the Swiss Confederation. Ionesco joined IOM in 2004 after working with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on local development policies.


Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman, Munich Security Conference

Building Back a Better EU Foreign Policy: Climate and Security After COVID-19

Wolfgang Ischinger is Chair of the Munich Security Conference, a post he has held since 2008. Before, he served as Germany’s Ambassador to the United States from 2001 to 2006 and to Great Britain between 2006 and 2008.


Dhanasree Jayaram, Assistant Professor and Co-Coordinator of Centre for Climate Studies, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Karnataka, India

Without Attention, Geoengineering Could Upend Foreign Policy

Dhanasree Jayaram is an Assistant Professor, Department of Geopolitics and International Relations and Co-coordinator, Centre for Climate Studies, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), India; and Research Fellow, Earth System Governance. She is the author of Breaking out of the Green House: Indian Leadership in Times of Environmental Change (2012), and has conducted research on climate diplomacy at University of Lausanne and environmental security at Leiden University.


Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner, Poet; Climate Envoy, the Republic of the Marshall Islands; Director, Jo-Jikum

Displacement and Out-Migration: The Marshall Islands Experience

Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner is a poet of Marshallese ancestry, born in the Marshall Islands and raised in Hawaiʻi. She received international acclaim through her poetry performance at the opening of the United Nations Climate Summit in New York in 2014. The University of Arizona Press published her collection of poetry, Iep Jāltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter in 2017. She has created art installations and performances with the Smithsonian and the Queensland Art Gallery, amongst others. In 2019, she was selected as an Obama Asia Pacific Leader Fellow and MIT Director’s Media Lab Fellow. She received her Master’s in Pacific Island Studies from the University of Hawaiʻi, and is currently a PhD Candidate at Australia National University. Kathy serves as Climate Envoy for the Republic of the Marshall Islands government and as Director for the Marshall Islands-based youth environmental nonprofit Jo-Jikum.


Michael Kugelman, Deputy Director and Senior Associate for South Asia, Wilson Center

Climate-Induced Displacement: South Asia’s Clear and Present Danger

Michael Kugelman is Asia Program deputy director and senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center. He is responsible for research, programming, and publications on South Asia. His specialty areas include Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, and U.S. relations with each of them. His recent projects have focused on India’s foreign policy, U.S.-India relations, India-Pakistan relations, the war in Afghanistan, U.S. policy in South Asia, transboundary water management in South Asia, and energy and climate change challenges in Pakistan. He is a regular contributor to publications that include Foreign Policy, The National Interest, and CNN.com.


Tatiana Mitrova, Director, Energy Centre, Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO

The Geopolitics of Decarbonization: The Russian Case

Tatiana Mitrova, PhD, is Director of the Energy Center in Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO. She has more than twenty years of experience in the analyses of the global and Russian energy markets. Mitrova is a Senior Research Fellow in the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES), Scientific advisor at the Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ERI RAS), Visiting Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, and Distinguished Research Fellow at Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ). She is also a Non-Executive Director at Schlumberger NV and NOVATEK, and Visiting Professor at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) Paris School of International Affairs.


Oliver Morton, Briefings Editor, The Economist

The Geopolitical Challenges of Geoengineering—and Geoengineering’s Challenge to Geopolitics

Oliver Morton is The Economist’s briefings editor. Before coming to The Economist as energy and environment editor in 2009, he was the chief news and features editor of Nature, the international scientific journal. He specialises in the energy business, climate science and policy, and other green issues. He is the author of Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet, a study of photosynthesis, its meanings and its implications, and Mapping Mars: Science, Imagination and the Birth of a World.


Vanessa Nakate, Climate Activist, Youth for Future Africa

What Foreign Policy Needs to do to Address Climate Change in the Developing World

Vanessa Nakate is a climate activist. She was the first Fridays for Future climate activist in Uganda and founder of the Rise Up Climate Movement—a movement to amplify the voices of activists from Africa. Her work includes raising awareness of climate change causes and impacts. She spearheaded the campaign, Save Congo Rainforest, which has spread to other countries in Africa and Europe. She is working on a project that involves the installation of solar and institutional stoves in schools. She was one of a handful of youth activists to speak at COP25 in Spain. Nakate graduated with a degree in Business Administration in Marketing from Makerere University Business School.


Simon Nicholson, Professor, American University; Co-Executive Director, Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment

Solar Radiation Management

Simon Nicholson is an Associate Professor in the School of International Service at American University. He also co-directs the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy and directs the Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment. Professor Nicholson’s research focuses on global environmental governance, global food politics, and the politics of emerging technologies, including carbon removal and solar geoengineering technologies. He is co-editor, with Wil Burns and David Dana, of the forthcoming book Climate Geoengineering: Law and Governance (Springer).


Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, Vice President, Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions, World Bank Group

How to Defuse the “Double Jeopardy” of Climate and Financial Risks in Developing Countries

Ceyla Pazarbasioglu is Vice President for Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions at the World Bank Group. In this role, she provides strategic leadership to the best expertise from the World Bank and International Finance Corporation to help developing countries build the foundations for inclusive and sustainable growth. She is a former Deputy Director, Monetary and Capital Markets, at the International Monetary Fund; and Vice President of the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency, Turkey.


Lydia Powell, Distinguished Fellow & Head, Centre for Resources Management, Observer Research Foundation

Climate Superpowers

Lydia Powell has been with the Observer Research Foundation for over 20 years working on policy issues in energy and the environment in the Indian context. Her current interests include energy access, carbon constraints on energy use, clean coal & natural gas for energy, and environmental security. She has also worked for Norsk Hydro and for Orkla, two of Norway’s largest conglomerates whose interests include energy. Powell has three Post Graduate Degrees - two on Energy Management from Norway and one in Solid State Physics from India.


Lauren Risi, Project Director, Environmental Change & Security Program, Wilson Center

Reorienting Perceptions of Climate Change, Migration, & Displacement

Lauren Risi directs the Environmental Change and Security Program at the Wilson Center, where she works with policymakers, practitioners, and researchers to generate innovative, transdisciplinary solutions to development and security challenges related to environmental change and natural resource management. Risi is the managing editor of New Security Beat. She served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bulgaria and a Crisis Corps volunteer with the Peace Corps and FEMA in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Risi holds a master’s degree in environmental security and peace from the UN-mandated University for Peace in Costa Rica.


Frédéric Samama, Head of Responsible Investment, Amundi

Financial Stability in the Age of Global and Systemic Ecological Risks (“Green Swans”)

Frédéric Samama is Head of Responsible Investment at Amundi. He is the founder of the SWF Research Initiative, co-editor of a book on long-term investing alongside Nobel Prize Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Professor Patrick Bolton, and has published numerous papers on green finance. Formerly, he oversaw Corporate Equity Derivatives within Crédit Agricole Corporate Investment Banking in New York and Paris. During his tenure, he developed and implemented the first international leveraged employee share purchase program, a system now widely used among French companies. He has advised the French government in different areas, including employee investing mechanisms, market regulation, and climate finance, and has a long track record of innovation at the crossroads of finance and government policy. In recent years, he has focused on climate change with a mix of financial innovation, research and policymaking recommendations, advising central banks, sovereign wealth funds, and policymakers.


Kori Schake, Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute

Defanging Great Power Competition

Kori Schake leads the foreign and defense policy team at the American Enterprise Institute.  She is the author of Safe Passage: the Transition from British to American Hegemony, and a contributing writer at The Atlantic, War on the Rocks, and Bloomberg.


Cynthia Scharf, Senior Strategy Director, Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative

Governance is Essential to Manage the Risks of Solar Radiation Modification

Cynthia Scharf is the Senior Strategy Director for the Carnegie Climate Governance initiative (C2G). She previously served as the head of strategic communications and speechwriter on climate change for the United Nations Secretary-General from 2009-2016. As a senior member of the Secretary-General’s Climate Change Support Team, she helped organize two global climate summits and was part of the Secretary-General’s team of advisers for the landmark Paris climate change agreement in 2015. Prior to this, Scharf worked in the field of humanitarian relief with the UN and international NGOs. She began her career as a journalist in Moscow. She received her MA from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.


Helga Maria Schmid, Secretary General, European External Action Service

To Build Back Better, We Must Cooperate on Climate Change

Helga Maria Schmid is Secretary General of the European External Action Service (EEAS). Within the EU Institutions Schmid previously served as the Deputy Secretary General for Political Affairs (EEAS) and Director of the Policy Planning and Early Warning Unit of the High Representative for the CFSP (General Secretariat of the Council of the EU). Before joining the EU Institutions Schmid was the Head of the Political Staff of the German Federal Foreign Office and Head of the Office of the German Minister for Foreign Affairs.


Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva, Deputy General Manager, Bank for International Settlements

Financial Stability in the Age of Global and Systemic Ecological Risks (“Green Swans”)

Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva is Deputy General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements. Prior to that, he was Deputy Governor at the Central Bank of Brazil, in charge of Economic Policy, International Affairs, and Financial Regulation. He also served as Deputy Finance Minister, in charge of International Affairs at the Ministry of Finance and as Chief Economist of the Ministry of Budget and Planning. He is a former Regional Country Director and Advisor to the Chief Economist at the World Bank and, in Japan, worked at the Institute of Fiscal and Monetary Policy of the Ministry of Finance and as Country Risk Director at the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). He has published on development economics, macroeconomic modeling, and poverty reduction, and is the co-editor with François Bourguignon of The impact of macroeconomic policies on poverty and income distribution: macro-micro evaluation techniques and tools (Palgrave Macmillan World Bank), and with Pierre-Richard Agénor, Integrated Inflation Targeting (BIS 2019).


Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO, New America

The Solidarity America Needs

Anne-Marie Slaughter is the CEO of New America. She is also the Bert G. Kerstetter '66 University Professor Emerita of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. From 2009–2011, she served as director of policy planning for the United States Department of State. Prior to her government service, Slaughter was the Dean of Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School) and the J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law at Harvard Law School. Slaughter is a contributing editor to the Financial Times and writes a bi-monthly column for Project Syndicate. She received a B.A. from Princeton, an M.Phil and D.Phil in international relations from Oxford, where she was a Daniel M. Sachs Scholar, and a J.D. from Harvard.


Romain Svartzman, Economist, Banque de France

Financial Stability in the Age of Global and Systemic Ecological Risks (“Green Swans”)

Romain Svartzman works as an economist on sustainable finance and climate-related risks at the Banque de France. He previously worked for the International Finance Corporation (World Bank Group) as an environmental and social consultant, and as an investor in clean technologies for a French venture capital firm. Svartzman completed his PhD in ecological macroeconomics at McGill University (Canada). He holds a master’s degree in Finance and International Business from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po), as well as a degree in Economics and Law of Climate Change from FLACSO Argentina.


Dennis Tänzler, Director of International Climate Policy, adelphi

The New Geopolitics of a Decarbonizing World

Dennis Tänzler is Director International Climate Policy at adelphi. His research focuses on climate and energy policies as well as on peace and conflict studies. In 2007 and 2008 he served the Policy Planning Unit of the German Foreign Office as an expert on climate and energy policies. Dennis Tänzler has more than fifteen years of experience in the fields of global environmental policy, climate change policy and climate change and foreign policy.


Scott Tong, Senior Correspondent, Marketplace

Harvesting Ill Will: Can the U.S. and China Turn a Budding Cold War into a Clean Energy Space Race?

Scott Tong is senior correspondent at Marketplace’s Sustainability desk, where his coverage focuses on energy, environment, and the global economy. He is the author of the critically acclaimed A Village with My Name: A Family History of China’s Opening to the World (University of Chicago Press). Tong has reported from more than a dozen countries, contributed in-depth reporting on Venezuela’s economic crisis, the “resource curse” of fossil fuel-rich countries, U.S.-China relations, the 2011 tsunami in Japan and 2011 famine in the Horn of Africa. From 2006-2010, Tong served as Marketplace bureau chief in Shanghai, where he reported a special series on the economics of one child. He covered the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the global financial crisis in Asia, China’s exploding consumer market, product safety and slave labor scandals, and controversial baby-selling in China’s international adoption program. Prior to joining Marketplace, Tong worked as a producer and reporter for the PBS NewsHour, where he reported from Iraq in 2003. He served as a Knight-Wallace journalism fellow at the University of Michigan in 2013-14. He lives in Arlington, Virginia with his wife and three children.


Huiyao Wang, Founder and President, Center for China and Globalization

“Climate Superpowers?” Why the Cold War is the Wrong Analogy for our Heating Planet

Huiyao (Henry) Wang is the Founder and President of Center for China and Globalization (CCG), the leading Chinese non-government think tank. Wang was appointed as a Counselor of China State Council, China’s cabinet in 2015. He is also the Vice Chairman of China Association for International Economic Cooperation Association of the Ministry of Commerce and the Dean of Institute of Development Studies of China Southwestern University of Finance. He pursued PhD studies in international business and global management at University of Western Ontario and University of Manchester. Wang was a Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and Visiting Fellow at Brookings Institution.


Les Williams, Co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer, Risk Cooperative

Leverage the Insurance Industry to Drive Climate-Proof Development

Les Williams is the Co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer of Risk Cooperative, where he leads business development and sales initiatives. He works with clients to help develop risk mitigation strategies and provides insurance portfolio management. He has built a career leading business development at blue chip firms such as Ford Motor Company, IBM, and JLL. Williams is a dual-licensed insurance broker, a Certified Risk Manager (CRM), and was recognized as a 2020 Power Broker in Risk Insurance magazine. He is a member of the Cybersecurity Strategic Council for the Private Directors Association (PDA). He is an alumnus of the University of Virginia (UVA), where he received a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he served as Co-President of the student body. He serves as a trustee for the UVA Engineering School Foundation and is a member of the UVA Alumni Association Board of Managers.