C2GLearn
Introduction to the governance of
emerging climate-altering approaches
This topic aims to introduce audiences to the importance of talking about Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) and Solar Radiation Modification (SRM) approaches, and the need for their governance. It seeks to answer the following questions:
- How are climate-altering approaches situated in the context of global challenges on responding to climate risks?
- What is governance?
- Why is it important to talk about the governance of these approaches?
- What are the two categories of emerging climate-altering approaches, and what are their potential benefits, risks and governance challenges?
Webinars
This Webinar features two fifteen-minute expert overviews of emerging climate-altering approaches, and the governance challenges it raises. It will be followed by a half hour moderated Q&A session, during which audience members are invited to submit written questions via the Zoom chat. Speakers include:
Arunabha Ghosh / India
Dr Arunabha Ghosh is a public policy professional, adviser, author, columnist, and institution builder. As the founder-CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, since 2010, he has led CEEW to the top ranks as one of Asia’s leading policy research institutions (seven years in a row); and among the world’s 20 best climate think-tanks in 2013 and 2016. He has been actively involved in the design of the International Solar Alliance since inception. He conceptualised and is a founding board member of the Clean Energy Access Network (CLEAN). With experience in 45 countries, he previously worked at Princeton, Oxford, UNDP (New York), and WTO (Geneva). In 2018, the UN Secretary-General nominated him to the UN’s Committee for Development Policy. In 2020, the Government of India appointed him Co-Chair of the energy, environment and climate change track for India’s forthcoming Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP2020). His 2019 TED Talk on air quality (Mission 80-80-80) crossed 100,000 views within three weeks of release. He is one of six members of an international high-level panel of the Environment of Peace initiative.
He is lead author of Jobs, Growth and Sustainability: A New Social Contract for India’s Recovery (CEEW, 2020). He is the co-author/editor of four books: The Palgrave Handbook of the International Political Economy of Energy (2016); Energizing India: Towards a Resilient and Equitable Energy System (SAGE, 2016); Human Development and Global Institutions (Routledge, 2016); and Climate Change: A Risk Assessment (FCO, 2015). Arunabha’s essay “Rethink India’s energy strategy” in Nature was selected as one of 2015’s ten most influential essays.
Arunabha advises governments, industry, civil society and international organisations around the world. This has included India’s Prime Minister’s Office, several ministries and state governments. He was invited by France, as a Personnalité d’Avenir, to advise on the COP21 climate negotiations; and also advised extensively on HFC negotiations. He served on the Executive Committee of the India-U.S. PACEsetter Fund. He has been a member of Track II dialogues with ten countries/regions; and formulated the Maharashtra-Guangdong Partnership on Sustainability. He is a member of the Environment Pollution (Prevention & Control) Authority for the National Capital Region.
His monthly columns in the Business Standard (Inflexion Points) and the Hindustan Times (Over The Horizon) are widely read. He has hosted a documentary on water in Africa, featured in National Geographic and Discovery Channel documentaries on energy, and delivered a TED Talk on air quality. He is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, member of WEF’s Global Future Council on Energy, and an Asia Society Asia 21 Young Leader. He holds a D.Phil. from Oxford and topped Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.
Thelma Krug / Brazil
Thelma Krug is a former researcher at the Earth Observation Coordination at the National Institute for Space Research in Brazil, under the Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communication (MCTIC). She was elected Vice-Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for the Sixth Cycle of Panel (October 2015 – October 2022), after having been co-chair of the IPCC Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories from 2002 until 2015. She holds a PhD on Spatial Statistics from the University of Sheffield, UK. She has been Deputy National Secretary at the Secretary on Policies and Programs of Science and Technology at MCTIC; National Secretary at the Secretary on Climate Change and Environmental Quality from the Ministry of the Environment (MMA) and Director of the Department on Policies to Combat Deforestation under the Secretary of Climate Change and Forests at MMA. For more than 15 years she represented Brazil in the negotiations at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), with particular focus on issues related to land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF); research and systematic observations; and reporting guidelines. Her main areas of interest are climate change and the role of deforestation, forest degradation and land-use change; REDD+; and national greenhouse gas inventories.Moderator: Alia Hassan / France
Alia Hassan is an international relations expert, and an Outreach Officer at C2G in charge of engaging governments and intergovernmental organisations. With over 10 years of experience in Latin America and the Middle East, she specialises in sustainability, education and culture, and working with governments and international organisations to build strategic alliances. Before joining C2G, Alia worked with UNDP as Project Coordinator where she supported the Government of Ecuador’s efforts to strengthen the country’s climate change governance.
Alia holds a MSc Degree in Political Science from the University of Quebec in Montreal, and a BSc in Communication Science from the University of Montreal.
Introduction
Presentations
Slide presentations
Q&A (Webinar 1)
Q&A (Webinar 2)
Campfire Chat
This Campfire Chat aimed to provide insights into diverse viewpoints on the governance of emerging climate-altering technologies (presented in the webinar above), in a relatively informal, moderated, semi-structured discussion between experts. Audience members were invited to suggest topics via the Zoom chat. Guests included:
Arunabha Ghosh / India
Dr Arunabha Ghosh is a public policy professional, adviser, author, columnist, and institution builder. As the founder-CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, since 2010, he has led CEEW to the top ranks as one of Asia’s leading policy research institutions (seven years in a row); and among the world’s 20 best climate think-tanks in 2013 and 2016. He has been actively involved in the design of the International Solar Alliance since inception. He conceptualised and is a founding board member of the Clean Energy Access Network (CLEAN). With experience in 45 countries, he previously worked at Princeton, Oxford, UNDP (New York), and WTO (Geneva). In 2018, the UN Secretary-General nominated him to the UN’s Committee for Development Policy. In 2020, the Government of India appointed him Co-Chair of the energy, environment and climate change track for India’s forthcoming Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP2020). His 2019 TED Talk on air quality (Mission 80-80-80) crossed 100,000 views within three weeks of release. He is one of six members of an international high-level panel of the Environment of Peace initiative.
He is lead author of Jobs, Growth and Sustainability: A New Social Contract for India’s Recovery (CEEW, 2020). He is the co-author/editor of four books: The Palgrave Handbook of the International Political Economy of Energy (2016); Energizing India: Towards a Resilient and Equitable Energy System (SAGE, 2016); Human Development and Global Institutions (Routledge, 2016); and Climate Change: A Risk Assessment (FCO, 2015). Arunabha’s essay “Rethink India’s energy strategy” in Nature was selected as one of 2015’s ten most influential essays.
Arunabha advises governments, industry, civil society and international organisations around the world. This has included India’s Prime Minister’s Office, several ministries and state governments. He was invited by France, as a Personnalité d’Avenir, to advise on the COP21 climate negotiations; and also advised extensively on HFC negotiations. He served on the Executive Committee of the India-U.S. PACEsetter Fund. He has been a member of Track II dialogues with ten countries/regions; and formulated the Maharashtra-Guangdong Partnership on Sustainability. He is a member of the Environment Pollution (Prevention & Control) Authority for the National Capital Region.
His monthly columns in the Business Standard (Inflexion Points) and the Hindustan Times (Over The Horizon) are widely read. He has hosted a documentary on water in Africa, featured in National Geographic and Discovery Channel documentaries on energy, and delivered a TED Talk on air quality. He is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, member of WEF’s Global Future Council on Energy, and an Asia Society Asia 21 Young Leader. He holds a D.Phil. from Oxford and topped Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.
Amy Luers / United States of America
Amy Luers is the global director of the Sustainability in the Digital Age Initiative and senior advisor to Future Earth. Luers also sits on the Foresight Committee of the Veolia Institute. She has over 25 years of experience working at the intersection of science, technology and policy. A former assistant director on climate resilience and information in the Obama White House and senior environment manager at Google, she is a member of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations and has served on committees of the U.S. Global Change Research Program and the National Academies of Sciences. Dr. Luers started her career working in rural water development in Latin America as co-founder and the first executive director of Agua Para La Vida (Water for Life). She spent a number of years directing the water and climate security work at the Skoll Global Threats Fund. She sits on several advisory boards including the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative, STS Forum Regional Climate Action, the IEEE Committee on Ethically Designed AI for a Sustainable Planet, the International Observatory on the Societal Impacts of AI and Digital Technologies, and the US National Council for Science and the Environment. Amy Luers holds a Ph.D. in environmental science and an M.A. in international policy studies, from Stanford University; a B.S. and M.S. in environmental systems engineering from Humboldt State University; and a B.A. in philosophy from Middlebury College. She has published in both peer-reviewed and popular media on big data and the digital age, science communication, climate policy and vulnerability and resilience of human-environmental systems.
Saleemul Huq / Bangladesh
Prof. Saleemul Huq is the Director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) at Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) since 2009 and Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Environment & Development (IIED) in London. He is also Senior Advisor on Locally Led Action, Global Centre on Adaptation (GCA) and Advisor of Climate Change Programme at Brac. Before that Dr Huq was the Director of the Climate Change Programme at IIED and founding Executive Director at the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS). He has worked extensively in the inter-linkages between climate change (both mitigation as well as adaptation) and sustainable development, from the perspective of the developing countries, with special emphasis on least developed countries (LDCs). He has published numerous articles in scientific and popular journals, was a lead author of the chapter on Adaptation and Sustainable Development in the third assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and was one of the coordinating lead authors of ‘Inter-relationships between adaptation and mitigation’ in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (2007). He has been named among the “World’s 100 Most Influential People in Climate Policy for 2019” for making a positive difference by The Apolitical, a London-based public servants’ networking group.
Simon Nicholson / New Zealand
Simon Nicholson is 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).
Thelma Krug / Brazil
Thelma Krug is a former researcher at the Earth Observation Coordination at the National Institute for Space Research in Brazil, under the Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communication (MCTIC). She was elected Vice-Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for the Sixth Cycle of Panel (October 2015 – October 2022), after having been co-chair of the IPCC Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories from 2002 until 2015. She holds a PhD on Spatial Statistics from the University of Sheffield, UK. She has been Deputy National Secretary at the Secretary on Policies and Programs of Science and Technology at MCTIC; National Secretary at the Secretary on Climate Change and Environmental Quality from the Ministry of the Environment (MMA) and Director of the Department on Policies to Combat Deforestation under the Secretary of Climate Change and Forests at MMA. For more than 15 years she represented Brazil in the negotiations at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), with particular focus on issues related to land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF); research and systematic observations; and reporting guidelines. Her main areas of interest are climate change and the role of deforestation, forest degradation and land-use change; REDD+; and national greenhouse gas inventories.Moderator: Janos Pasztor / Hungary & Switzerland
Janos Pasztor (a Hungarian and a Swiss citizen) is Senior Fellow of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, and is Executive Director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative (C2G).
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).
C2G strives to achieve a diversity of views and backgrounds across all its events. To that end, it is always open to feedback and suggestions regarding future participants and topics, to ensure a range of perspectives by sector, gender, race, geography, age and other dimensions. It will not always achieve the necessary diversity in all circumstances due to issues of availability and familiarity, but aims over time to expand the range of contributors able to address its issues, subject to the broad principles outlined in its mission statement.
