Ilona Mettiainen works as researcher at the Arctic Centre at the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland. She studies science-policy interface and strategic adaptation to climate change in the Arctic. Her recent and ongoing research projects include co-designing a climate service for winter tourism business (Blue-Action: Arctic Impact on Weather and Climate; H2020) and Arctic communities’ viewpoints to the design and governance of geoengineering. Specialized in Arctic issues, Mettiäinen has experience in multi and transdisciplinary research projects. Her other fields of expertise include sustainable Arctic tourism, Arctic human geography, and collaborative planning methods. Lately she has been increasingly working with visualization of social science and science communications.

Qi previously worked as programme manager for the UK Committee on Climate Change on a UK-China cooperation on climate risks. Prior to that, she spent 5 years in China working as policy officer on climate change for the British Embassy in Beijing and as campaign officer for Oxfam Hong Kong.

Halldór Thorgeirsson chairs the Icelandic Climate Council and acts as a consultant on topics relating to climate change and biodiversity. He held strategic positions at the UN Climate Change Secretariat (UNFCCC) in Bonn, Germany, for fourteen years until retirement in 2018. Responsibilities included managing substantive support to the negotiation of the Paris Agreement as Senior Director for Strategy. He also managed the interface with the scientific assessment function of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Before joining the secretariat, Halldór served as the Chair of the UNFCCC Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) for a two-year term. His research activities included studies of nitrogen cycling, the impact of elevated carbon dioxide on the carbon balance of trees in situ and measurements of fluxes of carbon dioxide and water over crops and forest canopies and of methane from Arctic wetlands. He holds a Ph.D. in Plant Ecophysiology from Utah State University.

Pam Pearson is the Director and Founder of the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative. She served for 20 years as a U.S. diplomat with the Department of State, with postings to Ecuador, Sweden and Norway; and worked also on global issues such as climate change, international health including HIV/AIDS, and nuclear security and non-proliferation. After leaving government, she worked as a consultant to various climate organizations and to the first Norwegian Arctic Council chairmanship, and subsequently founded ICCI in 2010 to bring a science-policy focus to the rapid changes occurring in the Arctic, as well as all cryosphere (snow and ice) regions throughout the globe. ICCI, a registered non-profit research and independent organization in both the U.S. and Sweden, stresses the importance of cryosphere preservation to the global climate system, working with multilateral organizations such as the UNFCCC, UNEP, WMO and academic institutions. ICCI also conducts mitigation demonstration projects with co-benefits to human health and food security, especially through measures to address black carbon emissions near cryosphere. Ms. Pearson served as a reviewer of both the IPCC Special Reports on 1.5 Degrees, and Oceans and Cryosphere; and holds degrees from Rice University (BS) and the University of Texas School of Public Health (MS).

Shawna Larson is the Regional Director for Native Movement based in Anchorage, Alaska. She is Ahtna Athabascan from Chickaloon Village on her father’s side, and Supiaq from the Native Village of Port Graham on her mother’s side. Shawna’s previous experience includes spending 13 years with Environmental non-profits working on International and local human rights and environmental policies. Shawna’s current focus is centred around Indigenous rights. She has served for more than 10 years on the Chickaloon Village Traditional Council and was selected by the Utne Reader magazine as a young visionary. She has worked extensively in community organising at a local, national and international level.

He has four decades of work experience in the areas of energy, environment, climate change, and sustainable development. Before taking up his current assignment he was UN Assistant Secretary-General for Climate Change in New York under Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Earlier, he was Acting Executive Director for Conservation (2014), and Policy and Science Director (2012-2014), at WWF International. He directed the UNSG’s Climate Change Support Team (2008-2010) and later was Executive Secretary of the UNSG’s High-level Panel on Global Sustainability (2010-2012). In 2007 he directed the Geneva-based UN Environment Management Group (EMG). During 1993-2006 he worked and over time held many responsibilities at the Climate Change Secretariat (UNFCCC), initially in Geneva and later in Bonn.

His other assignments included: the Secretariat of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit ’92); Stockholm Environment Institute; United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP); Secretariat of the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission); the Beijer Institute; and the World Council of Churches.

He has BSc and MSc degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Durwood Zaelke is founder and President of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD) in Washington, DC and Paris, focusing on fast mitigation strategies that avoid maximum warming in the next decade to slow climate feedbacks and reduce the risk of passing tipping points. This includes strengthening the Montreal Protocol, starting with the Kigali Amendment to phase down HFCs, while also improving efficiency of cooling equipment, which together can avoid up to 460 billion tons of CO2e by 2060 and up to 0.5°C of warming by 2100. IGSD’s fast mitigation strategies also include reducing all short-lived climate pollutants (black carbon, tropospheric ozone, and methane).

Prior to IGSD, Zaelke co-founded and served as President of the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) in Washington, DC and Geneva (1989-2003); was founder and director of the International & Comparative Environmental Law Program at the Washington College of Law, American University (1990-2004); founder and director of the International Program at EarthJustice (formerly the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund) (1988-89), and director of their Alaska and DC offices (1980-89); and Director of the Secretariat for the International Network for Environmental Compliance & Enforcement (2001-2015).

Zaelke co-founded the Program on Governance for Sustainable Development at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, UC Santa Barbara, and is the author of International Environmental Law & Policy (with Hunter & Salzman) (6th ed. forthcoming). He is a graduate of Duke Law School (1972) and UCLA (1969). He received the UN Ozone Political Leadership Award in 2017, as well as their Scientific Leadership Award, for his work helping achieve the Kigali Amendment. He received the Climate Protection Award in 2008 from the US EPA, as well as their Ozone Protection Award, for his work accelerating the phaseout of HCFC under the Montreal Protocol explicitly for climate protection.

Helene Muri is a research professor at the Industrial Ecology Programme at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) working on mitigation options in the maritime and aviation sectors. She holds a D.Phil (PhD) in atmospheric, oceanic and planetary physics from the University of Oxford from 2009, and a BSc in Meteorology from the University of Reading, UK.

She has been working within climate change research since, with a particular focus on assessment of the climate and environmental impacts of various options to ameliorate global warming through the use of climate models. This includes various forms of geoengineering, such as stratospheric aerosol injections, marine cloud brightening, and cirrus cloud thinning, in addition to carbon dioxide removal methods such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage. She has published almost 50 articles on geoengineering and lead several research initiatives on the subject.

She is contributing to the next reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); to both Working Group I on the physical science basis, as well as Working Group III on mitigation options. She is on the steering committee of the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP) and Carbon Dioxide Removal Intercomparison Project (CDR-MIP).

Shawna Larson is the Regional Director for Native Movement based in Anchorage, Alaska. She is Ahtna Athabascan from Chickaloon Village on her father’s side, and Supiaq from the Native Village of Port Graham on her mother’s side. Shawna’s previous experience includes spending 13 years with Environmental non-profits working on International and local human rights and environmental policies. Shawna’s current focus is centred around Indigenous rights. She has served for more than 10 years on the Chickaloon Village Traditional Council and was selected by the Utne Reader magazine as a young visionary. She has worked extensively in community organising at a local, national and international level.

He has four decades of work experience in the areas of energy, environment, climate change, and sustainable development. Before taking up his current assignment he was UN Assistant Secretary-General for Climate Change in New York under Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Earlier, he was Acting Executive Director for Conservation (2014), and Policy and Science Director (2012-2014), at WWF International. He directed the UNSG’s Climate Change Support Team (2008-2010) and later was Executive Secretary of the UNSG’s High-level Panel on Global Sustainability (2010-2012). In 2007 he directed the Geneva-based UN Environment Management Group (EMG). During 1993-2006 he worked and over time held many responsibilities at the Climate Change Secretariat (UNFCCC), initially in Geneva and later in Bonn.

His other assignments included: the Secretariat of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit ’92); Stockholm Environment Institute; United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP); Secretariat of the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission); the Beijer Institute; and the World Council of Churches.

He has BSc and MSc degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).