World Resources Report 2010/2011 Expert Bios

Fabio Abdala

Fabio Abdala is the Sustainability Manager to Mining Operations for Alcoa Latin America and the Caribbean region. He is a political scientist by training, PhD in International Relations, qualified in the Brazil, the France and the United Status. Fabio joined Alcoa in 2007 to coordinate the Sustainable Juruti model and since January 2010 became Sustainability Manager for Alcoa Corporate Mining BU in the LA&C region. He was Executive Secretary of Amazon Working Group, the largest community-based networks of Brazilian rainforest, during four years. Before that Fabio worked for Brazilian Ministry of Environment, for two years, where he was responsible for coordinating studies and dissemination on Brazilian rainforest conservation.

Helmy Abouleish

SEKEM’s Managing Director, Helmy Abouleish, has joined his father’s quest for sustainable development, building SEKEM into one of the leading entrepreneurial corporations for the 21st Century. He is a recognized leader of sustainable change in Egypt, the Arab world and beyond, driving manifold initiatives for sustainable development mainly in the fields of Organic Agriculture, Social Entrepreneurship and Responsible Competitiveness. In 2007 Helmy Abouleish established the EcoTec Holding, which invests in ecological technologies and green business ideas in Egypt.

Neil Adger

Neil Adger is Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. Neil has led the research programme on adaptation in the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research since its inception in 2000. Neil is a member of the Executive Board of the Resilience Alliance. He is a Convening Lead Author for the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change in its assessment of human security. His latest book is Adapting to Climate Change: Thresholds, Values, Governance (CUP 2009). He is Editor of the journal Global Environmental Change.

Shardul Agrawala

Shardul Agrawala is a senior economist at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), environment directorate, where he leads the work programme on climate change and development. He is the Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) for the chapter on regional development and cooperation for the Fifth Assessment Report of IPCC Working Group III, and has previously served as CLA for the chapter on adaptation practices for the Fourth Assessment Report of IPCC Working Group II. Dr. Agrawala’s publications include four recent books on adaptation to climate change. He received his PhD from Princeton University, and has previously worked at Princeton, Columbia and Harvard universities.

Neville Ash

Neville Ash is Chief of the Biodiversity Unit, at UNEP’s Division of Environmental Policy Implementation, where he supports international science-policy interfaces on biodiversity and ecosystem services. He was formerly Head of the IUCN Ecosystem Management Programme, where he provided leadership for IUCN on the programmes of work on Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction. He also supported the work of IUCN across a variety of ecosystem-scale biodiversity issues, with a focus on the interactions between global change, ecosystems and people. From 2001-2007, Neville was Head of Ecosystem Assessment at UNEP-WCMC, in Cambridge, UK. In this capacity he worked on a range of international assessment and network initiatives, focusing particularly on trends in global biodiversity, and the consequences of biodiversity change for ecosystem services, and people. Neville established the international partnership process to track progress towards the 2010 biodiversity target of the CBD and the Millennium Development Goals, and had a leading role in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), including through co-editing the MA Status and Trends Assessment Report and the manual for assessment practitioners. He is involved in a range of biodiversity, climate and ecosystem policy initiatives, and was a member of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Ad-hoc Technical Expert Group on biodiversity and climate change.

André Bassolé

André Bassolé is a senior expert in Geo-information Science and Technology, graduated from ITC, The Netherlands, with particular capacity in GIS/Remote Sensing applications in the sector of Environment and Sustainable Development. Former Director General of the National mapping Agency of Burkina Faso (Institut Géographique du Burkina - IGB), former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Public Work, Housing, and Town Planning/Management, Mr. Bassolé chaired the Board of Directors of the Pan-African, independent, non governmental and non profit organization called “Environmental Information System in Africa - EIS-Africa”, a Network for the Cooperative Management of Environmental Information in Africa, from the date of its creation in August 2000 to November 2005. Since 2004, Mr. Bassolé is the Director General and founder of a private Studies and Research Center called CERPINEDD based in Ouagadougou, the capital city of Burkina Faso in West Africa.

Jennifer Baumwoll

Jennifer Baumwoll is Research Analyst for UNDP's Energy and Environment Group, as part of the Bureau of Development Policy. She works on climate change adaptation focusing on policy development, cross-practice collaboration, and partnerships with UN Agencies and other international development and research organizations.

Belay Ejigu Begashaw

Belay Ejigu Begashaw joined the Earth Institute of Columbia University in January 2009 as Senior Agriculture Policy Specialist for Eastern and Southern Africa. He became director of The MDG Centre in August 2009 and he also serves as associate director of the Earth Institute's Tropical Agriculture and Rural Development Program. He has over 20 years of experience in agriculture extension and rural development, ranging from a grass-roots development agent to the Minister of Agriculture for Ethiopia. During his tenure as Minister of Agriculture, Ethiopia established the coalition for food security strategy, the National Extension and Transformation Program, the safety net program which support millions of farmers living in chronic to transitory food deficit situation, the Technical Vocational Education and Training Program, a strategy for commercializing smallholders agriculture and institutional reform of the agriculture knowledge system. In the past three years, Begashaw has done extensive consulting work for several international organizations in the area of food security, poverty reduction and investment.

Begashaw earned his MPA degree from Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, M.Sc. from University of Reading and a B.Sc. from Addis Ababa University, Almay College of Agriculture. He holds a Ph.D. in agricultural policy from Texas A&M University where he was a Borlaug Fellow. Begashaw has served as a member and chair of several boards of trustees with national and international mandates, including International Live Stock Research (ILRI), Alamaya University, Ethiopian Agriculture Research System, Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute, the National Drug Administration the National Standard Organization, the National Food Reserve agency and Ethiopian Radiation Agency. Belay likes reading in his spare time.

Dan Bena

Dan Bena is currently the Director of Sustainable Development for PepsiCo, and serves as liaison between technical functions, government affairs, public policy, and field operations to develop substantive advocacy, engagement, and messaging to internal and external stakeholder groups. He was invited by the mayor of his city to serve on its first Sustainability Advisory Board to develop a forward-looking sustainability plan for the city, one of only three nationwide selected to pilot a new sustainability planning tool kit. Bena is active in the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), World Economic Forum, and serves on the Steering Committee of the United Nations CEO Water Mandate.

Justin Benn

Justin Benn, MA, is a Director/Producer at Vivo Media in the UK, specialising in developing Film, New Media and Digital Toolkits for educational institutions, development agencies and social entrepreneurs, and a Participatory Video facilitator with several years experience filming with NGOs and 10 years lecturing experience in Linguistics and Media Production.

Arun Bhakta Shrestha

Arun Bhakta Shrestha is a Climate Change Specialist in the Integrated Water and Hazard Management Program at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), a mountain-focused institution working in the eight countries of the Himalayas. His main areas of expertise include climate change, glaciers and glacial hazards, glacial lake outburst mitigation, atmospheric environment, remote sensing, and hydrological modeling. He was actively involved in the Tsho Rolpa Risk Reduction Project and was on the scientific team preparing the First National Communication of Nepal to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Arun has a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from the University of New Hampshire, USA, and a Master’s degree in Hydraulic Engineering from Minsk, Belarus.

Rizaldi Boer

Dr. Rizaldi Boer is the Executive Director of Centre for Climate Risk and Opportunity Management in Southeast Asia and Pacific (CCROM-SEAP) of Bogor Agricultural University in Indonesia, where he also teaches at the Department of Geophysics and Meteorology and heads the Climatology Laboratory. Since 1995, he has been actively involved in various regional research activities related to climate variability and climate change. He is frequently invited by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat to be part of the expert review team of the National GHG Inventory of Annex 1 countries. He is currently the president of the Indonesian Society on Agriculture Meteorology and the chairperson of the RA V Working Group on Agricultural Meteorology for the World Meteorological Organization. He is also a co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize to the IPCC.

Philipp Maximilian Boes

Philipp Maximilian Boes graduated in 2008 at the German Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen, Germany with a Bachelor of Arts in Corporate Management and Economics and a minor degree in Political Management and Governance. In 2010, he got his Master’s degree with distinction from the Grenoble Graduate Business School in France in International Business. He started working for the SEKEM Holding since beginning of 2010. Mr. Boes is mainly responsible for the SEKEM Report on Sustainable Development and supports Helmy Abouleish in his work for the Egyptian National Competitiveness Council (ENCC) that is currently drafting an Egyptian Competitiveness Strategy.

Casey Brown

Dr. Casey Brown is Assistant Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering at UMass, Amherst and Adjunct Associate Research Scientist at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) of Columbia University. Dr. Brown specializes in climate risk management and sustainable management of water resources. He has a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering Science from Harvard University and led the water team at the IRI. He has a number of awards to his credit, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering (NOAA). He is PI and co-PI for several projects in the U.S. and abroad funded by NOAA, NSF, the World Bank, and the US Army Corps of Engineers and is Associate Editor of the ASCE Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management. Dr. Brown is a licensed professional engineer in the state of Colorado and a former U.S. Air Force civil engineering officer.

Foster Brown

Foster Brown is an environmental geochemist whose research interests focus on global environmental change and sustainable development in the southwestern Amazon Basin. He coordinates the Center’s program dealing with climate change and land use in the trinational southwestern Amazonia. Dr. Brown spent over twenty years as a faculty member of the Graduate Program in Environmental Geochemistry at the Federal Fluminense University in Niteroi, Brazil, and is currently on the faculty of the Federal University of Acre, Brazil. He earned his doctorate in environmental geochemistry at Northwestern University.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

Gro Harlem Brundtland, currently a Special Envoy on Climate Change for the UN Secretary-General, was the youngest person and the first woman ever to hold the office of prime minister in Norway. With two other periods as prime minister from 1986 to 1989 and 1990 to 1996, Dr. Brundtland was head of government for more than 10 years. Throughout her political career, Dr. Brundtland has developed a growing concern for issues of global significance. In 1983 the then United Nations secretary-general invited her to establish and chair the World Commission on Environment and Development. The Commission, which is best known for developing the broad political concept of sustainable development, published its report Our Common Future in April 1987. The Commission’s recommendations led to the Earth Summit—the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Dr. Brundtland finally stepped down as prime minister in October 1996. In her successful bid to become director-general of the World Health Organization her many skills as doctor, politician, activist and manager have come together. Dr. Brundtland was nominated as director-general of the World Health Organization by the executive board of WHO in January 1998. The World Health Assembly elected her for the position on May 13, 1998.

Cristina Bueti

Cristina Bueti is the Programme Coordinator for the Telecommunications Standardization Bureau of the ITU. She graduated from the Faculty of Political Science and International Cooperation and Development of the University of Florence, where she completed postgraduate studies in International Cooperation. In 2003, Ms Bueti completed a project for the Faculty of Laws, University of Malta, before joining the International Telecommunication Union in Geneva in January 2004. As a Programme Coordinator, she is actively involved in ITU-T’s activities related to sustainability, e-waste and climate change.

Ian Burton

Ian Burton is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Toronto and a Scientist Emeritus with the Meteorological Service of Canada, and a Visiting Fellow with IIED in London. He currently works mainly in the field of adaptation to climate change, and was engaged for many years in research on natural hazards and disasters. Ian enjoys working in the interface between science and policy. Ian has recently served as a consultant to the World Bank and the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. He has been leader of Canadian delegations to IPCC Plenary sessions and is currently a Convening Lead Author for the IPCC Special Report on Extremes, and will also be engaged in the IPCC Fifth Assessment. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a member of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Nella Canales

Nella Canales gives technical support on climate change as a main topic and as a crosscutting issue in CARE Peru. In Peru, Nella is part of the Adaptation Technical Group of Peru´s National Climate Change Commission. She had leaded the development of CARE Peru´s Climate Change Programe Strategy and is a member of the Advocacy Theme Team in CARE International´s Poverty, Environment and Climate Change Network (PECCN). Nella also acts as the de-facto climate change node for CARE Offices in Latin America & the Caribbean.

Elizabeth Cheney

Elizabeth (Libby) Cheney is the VP of Corporate Support for Shell Exploration & Production Company – Americas Region. Her responsibilities encompass Health, Safety, Security, and Environmental (HSSE), Business Planning and Support, Contracts and Joint Ventures, and Communications and Government Affairs associated with Exploration and Production activities throughout North, Central, and South America. Before joining Shell in 2006, Libby was the Manager of Non-Operated Global Development Projects for ExxonMobil Development Company in Houston, Texas, where she managed technical resources and decisions for non-operated global projects totaling more than $25 billion in gross investment. She began her career as a Reservoir Engineer with Exxon in Kingsville, Texas. Her background includes various assignments managing multi-functional teams for producing assets from offshore Gulf of Mexico to West Texas and California. Libby subsequently managed field operations and led an organization of engineers and technicians in developing and optimizing onshore US assets. In addition, she spent time as the Senior Strategic Planning contact for development projects in Russia, the Caspian, and the Middle East.

Esther Conrad

Esther Conrad is a doctoral student in the Society and Environment Division of the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at the University of California, Berkeley. From 2004 – 2010, she was Senior Staff Associate at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, where she contributed to interdisciplinary projects focused on the use climate information and forecasts in decision-making for agriculture, water and fire management in South and Southeast Asia. Previously, she worked at the United Nations Development Programme in the Global Environment Facility’s Small Grants Programme, analyzing community-based projects addressing climate change mitigation. She also worked for four years on policy advocacy for detained immigrants. Esther holds a Bachelor of Sciences in Earth Systems from Stanford University, a Masters in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge, and a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University.

Rémi Cousin

Rémi Cousin is a member of IRI Data Library Team, where he works to develop new functionalities and enable climate information communication and dissemination to end users. He holds a degree in engineering with majors in geo-sciences from l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Nancy. He has previously worked for Collecte Localisation Satellites (CLS) at Mercator-Océan (Toulouse, France) and at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL, Pasadena, CA).

Suraje Dessai

Suraje Dessai is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Geography at the University of Exeter. His research focuses on the intersection between climate science and decision-making under uncertainty. He is also a visiting fellow at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and a visiting scientist at the Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation Unit of the University of Lisbon. Suraje trained as an interdisciplinary environmental scientist at UEA and has worked on climate change research in the UK, US, Portugal, Australia, East Timor and The Netherlands. He has published over 35 peer-reviewed papers, 6 book chapters and edited a journal special issue. He was an expert reviewer of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third and Fourth Assessment Reports and is currently a Lead Author on the chapter “Foundations for Decision-making” for Working Group 2 (Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability) Fifth Assessment Report. He also serves on the IPCC’s Task Group on Data and Scenario Support for Impact and Climate Analysis. He has acted as a consultant for various organisations (WWF, British Council) and sits on various advisory panels (UKCP09 User Panel, Anglian Water). Suraje is currently involved in two large multi-institution projects: Water System Resilience (ARCC-Water) and End-to-end Quantification of Uncertainty for Impacts Prediction (EQUIP).

Ajaya Dixit

Ajaya Dixit is directing regional research on climate changes impacts on flood, drought and food system adaptation in South Asia. He is Executive Director of Institute of Social and Environmental Transition (ISET) Nepal. ISET-Nepal is one of the recipients of Think Tank Initiative Grant managed by International development Research Centre (IDRC).

Michael Dunlop

Dr Michael Dunlop is a land, water, biodiversity, climate analyst with Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia. Michael works on integrated analysis of long-term natural resource issues including adapting biodiversity policy to climate change, the sustainability of biofuels, agricultural futures, and water’s multiple contributions to society. He recently co-authored the first national assessment of the implications of climate change for biodiversity management in Australia; and has worked with governments at local, state and national level to help them respond to climate change.

Mohamed El-Ashry

Dr. Mohamed El-Ashry is senior fellow with the UN Foundation and a Board Member of the Arab Forum for Environment and Development, as well as a WRI Alum. He served as chief executive officer and chairman of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) from July 1994 to July 2003. He also served as chairman of the GEF during its Pilot Phase (1991-1994). Prior to joining the GEF he served as the chief environmental advisor to the president and director of the Environment Department at the World Bank, as senior vice president of the World Resources Institute (WRI) and as director of environmental quality with the Tennessee Valley Authority. He has held teaching and research positions at Cairo University, Pan-American-U.A.R. Oil Company, Illinois Geological Survey, Wilkes University and the Environmental Defense Fund. He has also served as senior environmental advisor to the UN Development Programme (UNDP), as special advisor to the secretary-general of the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) and as a member of the World Water Commission.

Dr. El-Ashry received his B.S. degree with honors in 1959 from the University of Cairo and Ph.D. degree in Geology in 1966 from the University of Illinois. He is the author of three books and more than 200 papers and articles. Dr. El-Ashry is a member of the International Task Force on Global Public Goods and is a fellow of the Geological Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a member of the Third World and African Academies of Sciences and is listed in American Men and Women of Science and Men of Achievement. He has received numerous international awards and honors and serves on the boards of a number of not-for-profit organizations.

Ismail El Gizouli

Ismail Abdel Rahim El Gizouli is an Energy & Environment Specialist with B.Sc. in. Mathematics. & Physics , from University of Khartoum, Sudan 1971 and M.Sc. in Operation Research & Statistics, University of Aston in Birmingham U.K 1980 He has more than 37 years experience in Industry, Energy Planning & Strategies, Policy Studies, Demand Management, Information Systems, Bioenergy, Renewable Energy Technologies (RETS), Institutional Capacity Building, Environment, Climate Change Inventory, Vulnerability, Adaptation, Mitigation and Sustainable Development. He started his professional career in 1971 with the Sudan Ministry of Industry. He joined the Ministry of Energy since 1980 till he became the Director of the National Energy Administration (the planning arm of the ministry) 1988-1992. He worked as a free lancer and conducted many consultancies for the African Development Bank, W.B., UNEP, FAO and African Energy Policy Research Network (AFREPRN). Since 1998 he joined The Higher Council for Environment and Natural Resources in Sudan as a consultant of all UNDP-Gov. joint Climate Change projects. He participated in many international, regional and national conferences, meetings and symposiums in industry planning, sustainable development, energy, environment and climate change.

David Faulkner

David Faulkner is a co-founder of Climate Associates Ltd. and Chairman of the ITU’s Joint Coordination Activity on ICT and Climate Change. He gained his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Essex in 1983 in the area of Optical Fibre Communications Systems. He led research in the field of access networks with specialization in passive optical networks for British Telecom between 1983 and 2007, filing 18 patents as inventor. Between 1995 and 1999 he was visiting lecturer at Essex University. From 2000-2008 he was Rapporteur for ITU-T/SG15/Q2 on “Fibre Systems for Access Networks”. He has chaired the conference on Networks and Optical Communications since its inception in 1995. He chaired the ITU-T Focus Group on ICT and Climate Change in 2008-2009 and is now Co-chairman of the Joint Coordination Activity on ICT and CC. He is studying climate change issues with interest in ICT and aviation and has adopted a more environmentally friendly lifestyle. He is keen to promote low energy networks and has adopted audio and web conferencing to minimize travel to meetings. In November 2009 he co-founded Climate Associates Ltd. to promote energy saving in networks and to research and advise on unforeseen ways in which the proliferation of engineering products on a global scale can drive climate change.

Sives Govender

Sives Govender is the Executive Director and member of the Board of Directors of Environmental Systems Africa (EIS-Africa). EIS-Africa is pan African, membership based geo-information knowledge network based in Pretoria, South Africa and is registered as a not for profit Section 21 company. He has a B.Sc in Geography and a MA (Social Policy) from the University of Durban-Westville (now University of Kwazulu Natal). Mr. Govender has, for over a decade, been involved in numerous geo-spatial science and technology related activities and projects throughout the continent of Africa to support sustainable development. He has been a contributor to UNEP’s Global Environmental Outlook (GEO) and African Environmental Outlook (AEO) publications. He has also contributed to drafting the “Africa: Atlas of Our Changing Environment”, developing the African Metadata Standard, project managed the study to determine fundamental geospatial datasets for Africa, drafting South Africa’s Spatial Data Infrastructure Act, and managing the largest GIS and remote sensing conference on the African continent i.e. AfricaGIS. He has worked, in promoting the use of Geospatial Science and Technology in Africa, with various international and regional organizations such as US Department of State, the AAG, NGA, UNEP/DEWA, TIGER-Africa, CEOS, UN-ECA CODI-Geo, USAID, WRI, GEO/GEOSS, FAO-GLCN, GSDI, EUROGI, USGS Eros Data Centre, GRID-Arendal, FK Norway, ESRI, Google Earth, the South African Government, RCMRD, RRSU, RECTAS, AARSE, CEDARE, CSE, CSIR and many other national, sub-national institutions and private companies in Africa.

Philip M. Gwage

Philip M. Gwage is in charge of Data Processing and Applied Meteorology Division and Climate Change issues for the Ugandan Department of Meterology. Since 1990, he has represented the government of Uganda in meetings related to data processing and applied meteorology and climate change negotiations. In this role, he was a member of the Ugandan Delegation to the Second World Climate Conference, held in November 1990 in Geneva, Switzerland, and in 2000, he spearheaded the establishment of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) Climate Change Negotiating Group. In 2010, he was re-elected to the CDM Executive Board and elected Vice Chair of the Methodology Panel.

Molly E. Hellmuth

Molly E. Hellmuth received her Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Colorado (USA), while working at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Austria). She specializes in the economics of climate risk management, and has contributed to the Stern Review and is cited extensively in the IPCC Working Group II Fourth Assessment Report. Dr. Hellmuth is currently based at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) at the Earth Institute of Columbia University (USA), where she is an Associate Research Scientist and the Director of the publication series, “Climate and Society.”

Stephen Holness

Dr. Stephen Holness is the Senior Manager for Strategic Conservation Planning for South African National Parks. He is responsible for spatial biodiversity planning, including systematic conservation planning to support the establishment of new protected areas, the expansion of existing reserves, and the prioritization of land use within reserves. Recent major national projects in collaboration with the South African National Biodiversity Institute include the spatial assessment for the South African National Protected Areas Expansion Strategy, and marine, climate change and coastal components of the current National Biodiversity Assessment. At a more local scale he is interested in incorporating biodiversity issues (in particular spatial priorities for climate change response) into integrated land use plans, and has been involved with producing Critical Biodiversity Area maps for a number of districts including the Garden Route, the Overberg and the Karoo.

Hilary Hove

Hilary Hove is a Project Officer with the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Climate Change and Energy Program. Her work involves research and project management responsibilities within both the mitigation and adaptation streams of the program. Current activities include research on nationally appropriate mitigation actions in developing countries, adaptation best-practices, and low-carbon development planning. Prior to joining IISD, Hilary worked as a Policy Analyst with the Federal Government of Canada, working on Canada-U.S. and international climate change policy. Hilary holds a Master of Arts from the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University and a Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) from McGill University.

Saleemul Huq

Dr. Saleemul Huq completed his BSc (with Honours) in 1975 from Imperial College, London, United Kingdom and his PhD in plant sciences also from Imperial College in 1978. He then taught at the University of Dhaka until 1984 when he set up (and became the first executive director) of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS) in Dhaka, Bangladesh. When he left BCAS in 2000, it was the leading scientific research and policy institute in the country in the field of environment and development. In 2000 he became an Academic Visitor at the Huxley School of Environment at Imperial College in London where he taught a course on global environmental policies. In February 2001 he joined the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in London as Director of the Climate Change Programme. His interests are 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 the least developed countries). He has published numerous articles in scientific and popular journals and was the lead author of the chapter on Adaptation and Sustainable Development in the third assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and is a co-anchor of the cross cutting theme on Adaptation and Mitigation for the fourth assessment report.

Saman Ikram

Saman Ikram is an environmental economist researching the policy and financial framework around climate change, trade and energy security at Yale University. As a South Asian, she has on the ground development experience in the region and reported for this article from Islamabad, Pakistan.

Yolanda Kakabadse

Yolanda Kakabadse is WWF's International President and the former Ecuadorian Minister of Environment. President Kakabadse's work with the environmental conservation movement officially began in 1979, when she was appointed Executive Director of Fundación Natura in Quito, where she worked until 1990. During this time she helped Fundación Natura become one of Latin America's most important environmental organizations and, in 1993, she created Fundacion Futuro Latinoamericano, an organization dedicated to promote the sustainable development of Latin America through conflict prevention and management. She was its Executive President until 2006 and remains as Chair of the Advisory Board. From 1990 until 1992, Yolanda Kakabadse coordinated the participation of civil society organizations for the United Nations Conference for Environment and Development (Earth Summit) in Geneva. From 1996 to 2004 she was President of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), and Member of the Board of the World Resources Institute (WRI) during the same period. In August 1998 Yolanda was appointed Minister of Environment for the Republic of Ecuador, position she held until January 2000. During 2001 she was a visiting professor at Yale's School of Forestry and Environment, USA. She co-Chaired the Environmental Sustainability Task Force of the UN Millennium Project, 2002 "“ 2005. She chaired the Scientific and Technology Advisory Panel of the Global Environment Facility (STAP / GEF) from 2005 to 2008. She is currently Team Leader for the Poverty and Environment Nexus (PEN) evaluation of UNDP (2009 "“ 2010).

Nidhi Kalra

Nidhi Kalra is a researcher at the RAND Corporation. Her research addresses energy, environment, climate change, and technology policy in transportation, international development, education, the armed forces, and other sectors. Kalra’s recent research includes assessing energy and environment research priorities for Qatar, evaluating the National Science Foundation’s National Science Digital Library program, and applying robust decisionmaking to long-term policymaking in developing countries. Nidhi received her Ph.D. in robotics from the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

Matthias Keitel

Matthias Keitel graduated in 2007 at Erfurt University, Germany, with a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy. In 2008, he got his Master’s degree from the University of Wales Aberystwyth in International Politics. After working for the consultancy firm adelphi as Project Assistant, he joined SEKEM Holding as Policy Analyst in July 2010. His fields of expertise are mainly in international climate and economic politics. In this context, he supports Helmy Abouleish is his work for several committees and boards of the World Economic Forum, UN Global Compact and other international institutions.

Marcus King

Dr. Marcus King is a Research Analyst and Project Director at CNA Corporation’s Center for Naval Analyses. Marcus’s work in the Environment and Energy Research Group focuses on climate change adaptation and strategic issues such as the effect of climate change on state stability. Prior to joining CNA, Marcus was Globalization Planning Fellow in the Office of the President at Georgetown University. As former Research Director of the Sustainable Energy Institute (SEI), he was responsible for convening dialogue between academics, business leaders and policymakers on a range of energy and environmental issues. During the Clinton Administration, he held appointed positions in the Offices of the Secretaries of Energy and Defense. While at Defense, he was a member of the U.S. delegation for the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol. Marcus holds Ph.D. and MALD degrees in international relations from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a BS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University. Marcus is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown where he teaches courses on environmental security.

Tony La Viña

Dr. Tony La Viña is currently Dean of the Ateneo School of Government, taking this position in 2006 when he returned to the Philippines after an eight year stint in the World Resources Institute (WRI). From 1996-1998, he was the Undersecretary for Environment and Natural Resources of the Philippines. Currently, Tony is a lead negotiator for the Philippines in the climate change negotiations. In 2009, in Copenhagen, he chaired the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (also known as REDD plus) negotiations which he led to near agreement. Dean Tony obtained his Masters (LLM) and Doctorate in Law (JSD) from Yale Law School and his first degrees from the University of the Philippines (in law) and the Ateneo de Manila University (in philosophy). Dean Tony's expertise includes climate change, biodiversity, biosafety policy, genetic resources, and trade and environment. He is also an authority on a range of governance areas such as leadership, consensus building and negotiations, human rights, social accountability, and pubic ethics.

Robert Lempert

Robert Lempert is a senior scientist at the RAND Corporation and Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition. His research focuses decision-making under conditions of deep uncertainty, with an emphasis on climate change, energy, and the environment. Dr. Lempert and his research team assists a number of natural resource agencies in their efforts to include climate change in their long-range plans. Dr. Lempert is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Climate Change Education Roundtable, and a lead author for Working Group II of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report and a lead author of the IPCC Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation. Dr. Lempert was the Inaugural EADS Distinguished Visitor in Energy and Environment at the American Academy in Berlin. A Professor of Policy Analysis in the Pardee RAND Graduate School, Dr. Lempert is an author of the book Shaping the Next One Hundred Years: New Methods for Quantitative, Longer-Term Policy Analysis.

Qun Li

Qun Li is a Senior Operations Officer and Task Team Leader with the World Bank. She is currently working in the Water Sector for the Middle East and North Africa Region, and was previously in the Social, Environmental and Rural development Sector of East Asia and Pacific Region. She has about 20 years of experience working on World Bank lending operations, much of it focused on a multi-sectoral project approach to rural and agriculture development, water resources and water saving irrigation development and management, rural institutional development for farmer water user association and farmer cooperative, and more recently climate change adaptation and mitigation in rural water and agricultural development. She had worked extensively with technical line agencies and ministries for agriculture and rural water, especially in China, Vietnam, the Philippines, and recently in Egypt. She was previously employed by the Economic Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, Water Resource Management, Inc. in USA, and the Economic Research Institute of the Shanghai Academy of Social Science in China. She has a Masters degree in Agricultural and Applied Economics from the University Minnesota, and some 8 years of direct rural and agriculture farming experience in China in the early 1970s.

Bo Lim

Dr. Bo Lim is the Principal Advisor on climate change, development and adaptation at the United Nations Development Programme. She has a PhD in the atmospheric science, and a Bachelor of Science in chemistry with Honors. She has published approximately 40 journal articles and international methodologies, including those for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. She has been closely involved at the interface between science and development policy in relation to climate change throughout her career.

Diana Liverman

Diana Liverman is the co-director of the Institute of the Environment at The University of Arizona and a professor in the School of Geography and Development. She is also affiliated with Oxford University where she is a visiting professor of Environmental Policy and Development in the School of Geography and Environment, a fellow of Linacre College, and a fellow in the Environmental Change Institute. Her degrees are from University College London (BA), University of Toronto (MA) and UCLA (PhD). Her main research interests focus on climate impacts, vulnerability and adaptation, and climate policy and mitigation, especially in the developing world. She also works on the political economy and political ecology of environmental management in the Americas, especially in Mexico. In 2010 she was awarded the Founders Gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society for her contributions to understanding the human dimensions of environmental change. Recent publications include work on carbon offsets, food security, and climate adaptation and the 4th edition of her coauthored textbook on World Regions in Global Context.

She has been an active member of national and international advisory committees on global change including the US NAS Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change and the Inter American Institute (IAI) for Global Change Research. Currently she is a member of the new National Academy of Sciences Committee on America’s Climate Choices which is advising the US government on responses to climate change and chaired the panel on Informing Climate Decisions. She is the chair of the scientific advisory committee international Global Environmental Change and Food Systems (GECAFS) program and editor of the Annual Review of Environment and Resources. She collaborates with several arts and cultural organizations interested in climate change.

Crispino Lobo

Crispino Lobo is an alumnus of the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, India, and the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, USA. Crispino has five academic degrees covering the fields of philosophy, theology, psychology, economics and public administration. He is well known in development circles for his knowledge and achievements in the fields of natural resource management, participatory watershed development and integrated water resources management. He co-founded WOTR (the Watershed Organization Trust), together with Fr Bacher, and now heads the Sampada Trust, a microfinance and entrepreneurship development centre.

Bruno Locatelli

Bruno Locatelli is a scientist with CIFOR and CIRAD, leader of CIFOR research on adaptation to climate change. His background is in environmental sciences. His interest in forests and climate change dates back to 1993, when he worked on carbon quantification with CIRAD. Later he researched mechanisms for forests and mitigation (Clean Development Mechanism, Payment for Ecosystem Services), especially during 2002 to 2007, when he was working with CIRAD and CATIE in Costa Rica. In 2005, his research activities shifted from mitigation to adaptation. He is now based in Indonesia and working with CIRAD and CIFOR on forests and adaptation to climate change.

Bindu Lohani

Dr. Bindu Lohani is the Vice-President of Finance and Administration of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila, Philippines. Prior to this, he was the Director General of the ADB's Regional and Sustainable Development Department (responsible for sectoral and thematic areas like energy, water, environment and governance) and the ADB's Chief Compliance Officer and Special Advisor to the President on Clean Energy and Environment. He also worked in Infrastructure and Environment Departments at ADB. Before joining the ADB, Dr. Lohani worked at the Government of Nepal and at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT). Dr. Lohani holds a Doctorate degree in Engineering. Dr. Lohani is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering of United States, and is, a diplomate of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Council.

Nelson Lujara

Nelson Lujara is an Energy Expert in the Ministry of Infrastructure (MININFRA) of the Republic of Rwanda. He holds a D.Eng (RAU-South Africa), M.Eng (McGill-Canada) and B.Sc (Eng) from the University of Dar Es Salaam (UDSM) in Tanzania, all in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. A seasoned academic and professional engineer, Dr. Lujara worked for the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) from 2000-2006, where he rose to the rank of Associate Professor and held the positions of Dean of the Faculty of Technology, Director of the Centre for Innovations and Technology Transfer and Vice-Rector in charge of Academic Affairs. Prior to joining KIST, he was a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Electrical Engineering of the UDSM. Dr. Lujara has more than 40 publications in the areas of renewable energy, power electronics, climate change and higher education.

Brian Lund

Brian Lund is the East Asia Regional Director for Oxfam America based in Phnom Penh. Brian brings to the discussion over 25 years insight into natural resource management and agriculture including 10 years in Cambodia. He is responsible for Oxfam America’s engagement in the region, in livelihood development and microfinance for the rural poor, trade policy and aid effectiveness debate, climate change adaptation and emergency response. Currently, his team is integrally engaged in working with civil society and State partners to advance awareness, understanding and response to climate change implications for Cambodia.

Kirsten Luxbacher

Kirsten Luxbacher is a freelance writer and researcher. Previously, she worked at the World Resources Institute to support the World Resources Report. She has an M.Sc. in Sustainable Development from Utrecht University, the Netherlands.

Colleen Macklin

Colleen Macklin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Design and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design in New York City and Director of PETLab (Prototyping Evaluation, Teaching and Learning lab), a lab focused on developing new games, simulations, and play experiences for experimental learning and social issues.

Amos Makarau

Amos Makarau (PhD) is climate expert and currently the Director of the Meteorological Services Department of Zimbabwe. He is the Chief Advisor to the Government of Zimbabwe on matters relating to climate, including climate change. He is one of the Zimbabwe experts participating in the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as well as in the UNFCCC negotiations. He is also a strategist, researcher and an academic with over 25 articles published in international journals.

Malini Mehra

Malini Mehra is the founder & CEO of the Centre for Social Markets (CSM), a non-profit that has pioneered work on sustainability and corporate responsibility in India and the Diaspora since 2000. CSM's award-winning "˜Climate Challenge India" campaign is the first of its kind in India and promotes a strong leadership agenda for the country "“ particularly working in close partnership with corporate leaders. Malini has worked on sustainability, development, gender and human rights issues for two decades and is a frequent media commentator. Her recognitions include World Economic Forum "˜Young Global Leader", Asia Society "Asia 21 Young Leader" and CNN "˜Principal Voice". She is a member of the Royal Society for Art, Commerce and Manufacture, the British-American Project and the Remarque Fellowship. Prior to founding CSM in 2000, Malini worked on international trade, environment and human rights for NGOs including Oxfam and Friends of the Earth. From 2005-2006, she served at the UK government, where she led on international sustainable development partnerships and initiated the UK Government's pioneering Sustainable Development Dialogues (SDDs) with China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico. From 2004-5, she served as Advisor to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on his High Level Panel of Eminent Persons on UN-Civil Society Relations. She also contributed to UN publications such as the Human Development Reports on Democracy (2002) and Human Rights (2000) respectively.

Guy Midgley

Trained in South Africa, Guy Midgley has worked as an ecologist for the South African National Biodiversity Institute since 1983, instigating climate change programs during the early 1990’s. He has worked in many ecosystems internationally, mainly in southern Africa, western South and North America and western Australia, collaborating with scientists on global change-related ecological research, publishing more than a hundred scientific products. A co-lead author for the IPCC in 2007 and for the upcoming report, he also co-leads national level work in the science/policy interface in South Africa. As a research associate of Conservation International, he co-authored their illustrated popular book “A climate for life” published in 2008.

Mike Muller

Mike Muller is a Professional Civil Engineer with extensive public policy and management experience at national, regional and international level. A visiting Adjunct Professor at the Wits University Graduate School of Public and Development Management in Johannesburg since 2006, in April 2010, he was appointed by President Jacob Zuma as a Commissioner of South Africa's first National Planning Commission. He advises various organisations on water and development management including the Global Water Partnership and the UN Water World Water Assessment Programme as well as regional and national organisations. He has also undertaken a range of research projects with a variety of partners including the Water Research Commission. While Director General of SA's Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (1997-2005) he led the development and implementation of new policies in water resources and services, providing water to over ten million people and transforming water resource management. Between 1988 and 1994, he managed infrastructure investment and policy programmes at the Development Bank of Southern Africa and participated in SA's transitional policy processes including the Reconstruction and Development Programme. From 1979 to 1988, he managed water programmes for the Mozambican government. Mike writes extensively, for both academic and popular publications. Recent publications include "Integrated Water Resource Management in Practice: Better Water Management for Development" (Earthscan 2009) and "Water Management, Water Security and Climate Change Adaptation: Early Impacts and Essential Responses" (GWP 2009).

Musonda Mumba

Dr. Musonda Mumba is currently the project officer and focal point person in the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on Climate Change Adaptation in Africa. Her responsibilities include providing technical expertise to African governments, developing appropriate policy briefs and other technical materials. She is also currently responsible for the Swedish government funded project entitled: Adapting to climate change induced water stress in the Nile River Basin. This project focuses on adaptation issues around transboundary water resources and how this relates to ecosystems (and related services), livelihoods and biodiversity issues. Musonda is also currently leading work on Ecosystem based adaptation and currently involved in a project in Mali, west Africa focusing on restoration of the Lake Faguibine – which is critical for floodplain agriculture and other livelihoods within the Niger Inner Delta. Musonda, a Zambian national, received her BSc. Ed degree at University of Zambia and her PhD at University College London in wetland conservation and hydrology - which was undertaken within the Kafue Flats of Zambia – which is a protected area under the Ramsar Convention.

Riedner Mumbi

Riedner Mumbi is a consultant on The RANET System, a communication system which was primarily formulated for the distribution of weather and climate information to the rural communities. However, realising the potential of the system Zambia decided to use it for the exchange of developmental information with the rural communities. This information includes that of climate and weather, health, agricultural, disaster warnings and environmental. He is also the chairman of the RANET Africa leadership Team (RALT) formed to spearhead implementation of the project over the African continent up to November 2007 and was re-elected in January 2008. Prior to his current position, Mumbi was the Chief Meteorological Officer of the Forecasting Division of the Meteorological Department of Zambia.

Richard Munang

Dr. Richard Munang is the Strategic Policy Advisor for a Joint UN Environment Programme and UN Development Climate Change Adaptation and Development Initiative called CC DARE. He specialises in societal adaptation, ecosystem-based adaptation, scenario generation (including downscaling) and climate change policy. He has conducted several assessments to understand how climate change affects ecosystems and food security and how adaptations can be formulated to reduce impacts. Prior to joining UNEP, he participated in a wide variety of research projects and has equally published more than 25 articles in international peer-reviewed journal and is currently a lead reviewer for two international journals – Agricultural Water Management and Climate Research. He has written a series of research and policy briefs to support UNEP's efforts in raising the profile of the ecosystem-based adaptation on the political agenda and also in tackling climate change and other environmental/humanitarian issues at global, regional, national and local levels. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Environmental change from the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom, as well as a Master degree in Environmental Sciences (MSc) from the same university.

Richard Stanislaus Muyungi

Richard Stanislaus Muyungi holds a Masters Degree in Environmental Protection and Management, with focus on climate change, from the University of Edinburgh, UK. He is the Assistant Director of Environment in the Vice President's Office of the United Republic of Tanzania and the National Climate Change Focal Point. For the past 23 years he has worked for the Government and the international community in the area of climate change at various positions. In 2008 he was elected the first Chairman of the Global Climate Change Adaptation Fund Board established under the Kyoto Protocol. Prior to that, between 2001 and 2003 he served as the Chairman of the LDCs in climate change negotiations whereby he championed the development and adoption of the LDC Programme of work which resulted in the preparation and implementation of Climate Change National Adaptation Plan of Actions (NAPAs) in LDCs. Between 2005 and 2007 he also served as a Member of the CDM Executive Board, and Vice Chairman of the Small Scale Working Group of that Board, responsible for capacity building for the African countries and for the review and approval of small scale methodologies and projects. He has also coordinated and chaired various negotiating groups and for over ten years he has been a lead negotiator and spokesperson on capacity building on behalf of developing countries in the climate change negations. Presently he is also working as a co facilitator on Mitigation negotiations towards a new climate change regime under the Bali Action Plan. He is also a member of the African Climate Change lead expert group advising African Heads of States on climate change issues. With this experience and educational background, which also includes a post graduate certificate in public administration and international Diplomacy from Reggio Calabria, Italy, he has established a reputation at an international level as one of the lead experts and negotiators in the area of climate change. Mr. Muyungi, who is currently in the final year of his PhD research work on Climate Change at the University of Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania, is married with four children.

Sreeja Nair

Sreeja Nair is a Research Associate with the Climate Change Division at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in India. Her work focuses on climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation assessment and policy analysis. She is an inter-disciplinary researcher with a Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences degree and a Masters of Environmental Studies degree. She works on cross-cutting issues and policy analysis related to climate change, across natural and social sciences. Her work explores the social dimensions of synergies and conflicts among population, environment and development.

Mutasim Bashir Nimir

Dr. Mutasim Bashir Nimir is a wildlife Biologist with a PhD from Colorado State University. He has occupied several jobs in the past, including Director of the Wildlife Research Centre of the Sudan, and President and Director of Sudanese Environment Conservation Society (SECS). Dr. Nimir is currently is National Project Coordinator for NAPA Priority Innovations Implement Project (LDCF - UNDP, Council for Environment and Natural Resources, and president of SECS.

Wilbur Ottichilo

Dr Ottichilo is currently the Member of Parliament for Emuhaya Constituency in the 10th Parliament (2008-2012) of the Kenya National Assembly. He contested and worn the Parliamentary seat in 2008. His goal as a Member of Parliament is to spearhead for constitutional and institutional reforms that will promote sustained economic growth and good governance in Kenya. He is also committed to the promotion of environmental conservation and science and technology for sustainable development. He is a member of the following Parliamentary Committees: Education, Research Science and Technology; Transport, Roads and Public Works. He is also a member of Pan-Africa Network on Renewable Energy and Climate Change (PANAREC).

Dr. Ottichilo has over 30 years of working experience in natural resources assessment and management, environmental conservation, land use mapping and planning, environmental impact assessment, proposal development and monitoring and evaluation. He also has wide experience in the application of Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) in mapping, natural resource assessment and monitoring and database development. He has MSc. in Biology of Conservation and Ecology and PhD in natural resources planning, assessment and management. He also has post-graduate diplomas in natural resources planning and landscape (land use) analysis and has attended numerous training courses in remote sensing, early warning and disaster management, GIS and management.

Rebecca Pearl-Martinez

Rebecca Pearl-Martinez is the Senior Researcher for Climate Change at Oxfam America, where she oversees climate change research projects and provides policy analysis. Prior to Oxfam, Rebecca was engaged for ten years in policy advocacy around UN environmental negotiations, most recently as Co-Founder and Coordinator of the Global Gender and Climate Alliance, a joint initiative of 13 UN agencies and 25 civil society organizations. In the 90s, Rebecca worked at the UN Andean Region office based in Ecuador and with community development initiatives in Nicaragua. She holds an MA in Sustainable International Development from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.

George Luiz Pereira Santos

George Luiz Pereira Santos is a Major of the State of Acre’s Military Firefighters Corp and has an undergraduate degree in economics and a Master’s in Regional Development. He teaches in Brazil’s National CIvil Defense System throughout Brazil as well as courses in administration at Uninorte in Rio Branco, Acre. His specialties include response to flooding and forest wildfires.

Maria Osbeck

Maria Osbeck is a researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute. She has worked on environmental issues in Asia since 2003 focusing on policy processes linked to terrestrial and coastal systems. She was involved in a EU-funded project on mangrove ecosystems in Southeast Asia between 2007-2010.

Jo-Ellen Parry

Jo-Ellen Parry is the Program Manager, Climate Change and Energy, at the International Institute for Sustainable Development. Drawing on her experience and broad knowledge of climate change, natural resource management and community development, her recent research and project management work has focused on adaptation to the effects of climate change, giving particular attention to issues and responses in developing countries. This includes exploring ways in which to integrate adaptation into development processes at the national and community level, with a focus on adaptation action in Africa. Previously she has undertaken research on how adaptation to climate change might be addressed within a future international agreement on climate change under the UNFCCC. Within Canada, Ms. Parry undertakes selected policy research for the Manitoba government to foster efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change in this province. Prior to joining IISD, she held several research positions with various academic, NGO and private organizations. She holds a Master of Environmental Studies degree from York University and a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Manitoba.

Caroline Petersen

Caroline Petersen is Learning Network Coordinator for the South Africa National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), capturing and disseminating learning about best practice across SANBI’s bioregional programmes and the partnerships they support. In 2010 she worked with South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs and the United Nations Development Programme, overseeing the development of a book entitled “Biodiversity for Development: South Africa’s Landscape Approach to Conserving Biodiversity and Promoting Ecosystem Resilience”. Caroline has a background in writing and policy formulation on environment and development issues. In 2005, Caroline was a lead author of the introductory chapter to the Global Environment Facility strategy document “Mainstreaming Biodiversity in Production Landscapes”. Caroline has an MPhil in Adult Education from UCT, and an MSc (Econ) in Economic History from the London School of Economics.

Jamie Pittock

Dr. Jamie Pittock has a background in zoology and geography from Monash University, Australia, and from 1989 he worked for various non-government environmental organisations. Jamie was Director of WWF’s Global Freshwater Programme from 2001 to 2007 promoting sustainable river basin management and representing WWF in international institutions. He then undertook doctoral research on freshwater ecosystems and climate change at the Australian National University. In 2010 Jamie was appointed as Program Leader, Australia and United States Climate, Energy and Water for the United States Studies Centre, and also as Director of International Programs for the UNESCO Chair in Water Economics and Transboundary Water Governance at the Crawford School of Economics and Government at the Australian National University. His research considers how our societies under climate change can better manage increasingly scarce and variable water resources to benefit people and nature.

Neil Powell

Neil Powell is a Senior Research Fellow and co-leader of the SEI theme, Transforming Governance. His research, teaching and development action is geared towards addressing intractable problems and resource dilemmas in the context of natural resource governance and management. The approach focuses on the inefficiencies and ambiguities of policy implementation in contexts characterized by abrupt environmental change and controversy. His work promotes understanding of how structures and stakeholder agency can be best deployed to reconcile contemporary intractable issues such as climate change adaptation and integrated agro-environmental actions. Just prior to joining SEI in 2006, Neil taught, supervised and undertook research as a Senior Lecturer at the Swedish Agricultural University, Uppsala. He was also worked as the program officer responsible for Swedish water resource development cooperation in Southern Africa at the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). Neil Powell has actively worked in numerous number of country contexts in Europe, Southern Africa, Southeast Asia and Australia.

Emilia Pramova

Emilia Pramova is a consultant with CIFOR (www.cifor.cgiar.org) and is a candidate for M.Sc. in Sustainable Resource Management from Technische University Munchen. Her background is in behavioural science and applied communications and she has worked on institutional campaigns, social networks and attitude change. Her professional and research interests are now centered around natural resource management and adaptation to climate change. She is based in Indonesia and works with CIFOR on ecosystem-based adaptation.

Samantha Putt del Pino

Samantha Putt del Pino is Co-director of the Business Engagement in Climate & Technology team at WRI. She collaborates with corporate partners to foster transformative approaches to long-term challenges. Samantha’s focus is at the intersection of innovative corporate strategy and low carbon development.

Adriana Ramos

Adriana Ramos is an environmental policy specialist and Executive Secretary of Socioenvironmental Institute (ISA), a brazilian NGO established in 1994 to propose integrated solutions to social and environmental issues. Adriana works on advocacy to improve social and environmental legislation and policies related to tropical forests and other ecosystems in Brazil. She also coordinates the Brazilian NGO Forum working group on forests and represents NGOS in the Guidance Committee of the Amazon Fund. Member of the National Environmental Council of Brazil as representative of Brazilian NGOs in the period between 2002 and 2006.

Nicola Ranger

Nicola Ranger joined the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment as a Research Fellow in March 2009. She was previously a Senior Research Analyst, on climate change and disaster risk, at Risk Management Solutions Ltd (RMS), the insurance catastrophe modelling firm. While there, she led a number of public and private sector research projects related to climate change risk assessment and adaptation economics for sponsors including the OECD, the World Bank, Lloyd's of London and CERES. Previous to this she has held positions as a scientific advisor and policy analyst for the 'Climate, Energy and Ozone: Science and Analysis' division of Defra (now part of DECC) and the 'Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change' at HM Treasury. Nicola holds a PhD in Atmospheric Physics from Imperial College London and a first class honours degree in Physics from the University of Warwick. Her current research interests include decision-making using uncertain climate model information, quantifying risks from extreme events and the role of disaster risk reduction and insurance in adaptation.

Jorge Recharte

Jorge Recharte, Anthropologist (Ph.D. Cornell University, 1989) is the Director of Andean Programs for The Mountain Institute (TMI) since January 1997. He has provided leadership to a multidisciplinary team that develops ecosystem conservation and cultural affirmation programs in Peru and Ecuador. These initiatives include the paramo ecosystem that extends through Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Cooperates with the Andean Community of Nations implementing cultural landscape conservation projects associated with the ancestral Inca road system. He worked in Ecuador between 1994 and 1996 for the Latin American Social Science Faculty (FLACSO), designing and managing a graduate education and research program dedicated to mountain ecosystems and societies. Between 1980-1981 and 1990-1993 Jorge was an associate researcher at the International Potato Center where he developed participatory research projects in agriculture and research on farming systems and human ecology. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of The Common Good Institute (IBC) in Lima, Peru; he has formerly served in the Board of Directors of the SANREM CRSP (University of Georgia).

Mike Rivington

Dr. Mike Rivington is a researcher in the Integrated Land Use Systems group within the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland. His areas of research combine interdisciplinary science on sustainable agriculture, climate change mitigation and adaptation, the role of ecosystems and ecosystems services in sustainable socio-ecological systems, and the evaluation of risks and uncertainties.

Johan Rockström

Johan Rockström is a Professor in natural resource management at Stockholm University, and the Executive Director of the Stockholm Environment Institute and the Stockholm Resilience Centre. He is an internationally recognized scientist on global sustainability issues, where he, e.g., led the recent development of the new Planetary Boundaries framework for human development in the current era of rapid global change. He is a leading scientist on global water resources, and strategies to build resilience in water scarce regions of the world, with more than 15 years experience from applied water research in tropical regions, and more than 100 research publications in fields ranging from applied land and water management to global sustainability. Rockström serves on several scientific committees and boards, e.g., as the vice-chair of the science advisory board of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact research (PIK) and he chairs the visioning process on global environmental change of ICSU, the International Council for Science. He was awarded the title “Swede of the Year” in 2009 for his work on bridging science on climate change to policy and society. He was ranked the 2nd most influential person on environmental issues in Sweden 2010, and was recently, in August 2010, given the “Social Capitalist Award” by Veckans Affärer.

Mary Seely

Dr. Mary Seely is an Associate of the Desert Research Foundation of Namibia (DRFN) and the Gobabeb Training and Research Center. She was formally the director of the DRFN and is currently director of Environmental Evaluation Associates of Namibia (Pty) Ltd and member of the Board of the Namibian National Planning Commission and the Millennium Challenge Account. During her career she focused on desert ecology, land degradation and desertification, shifting to water policy and integrated water resources management, and environmental and social impact assessments with an emphasis on participatory processes. She has published more than 160 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and co-supervised over 50 M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees. She recently served one year on the Scientific and Technological Advisory Panel of GEF and on the editorial board of Journal of Arid Environments.

Frances Seymour

Frances Seymour became CIFOR’s Director General on August 20, 2006. Prior to CIFOR, Ms. Seymour was the founder and Director of the Institutions and Governance Program at the World Resources Institute (WRI), where she guided the launch of The Access Initiative, a global civil society coalition promoting citizen involvement in environment-related decisions. She has authored and contributed to several WRI publications critically examining the role of public and private international financial institutions in promoting sustainable development. She previously served as Director of Development Assistance Policy at World Wildlife Fund, and spent five years in Indonesia with the Ford Foundation, where her grant-making focused on community forestry and human rights. She has served on numerous boards and advisory committees, including those of World Neighbors, the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development, the African Centre for Technology Studies, and the Center for Biodiversity and Indigenous Knowledge in China. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She holds a masters degree from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and a B.S. in Zoology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Paul Siegel

Paul B. Siegel, PhD (Virginia Tech) has been a consultant with the World Bank for over 20 years on a variety of issues related to agricultural and rural and regional development, and social protection, and issues related to risk management, and more recently with climate change. Dr. Siegel also was a professor in the United States and Israel, and has worked in many countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Middle East. Dr. Siegel has also been a consultant in recent years for UNDP and FAO. Recent publications have primarily been related to social dimensions of climate change, applying an asset based approach and the social risk management framework.

Shiv Someshwar

Shiv Someshwar is a research scientist at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and also holds a courtesy appointment at SIPA. Dr. Someshwar is leading a number of research initiatives in South and South East Asia on reducing livelihood vulnerability and increasing systems resilience to climate variability and climate change. He specializes in the institutional and policy dimensions of livelihoods and sustainable development. At the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) of the Earth Institute, Columbia University, Dr. Someshwar is Director, Institutions and Policy Systems Research, and Director, Asia and Pacific Regional Program. He is an anchor faculty for the Masters program in Climate and Society at Columbia University. Dr. Someshwar received his Ph.D. from the University of California, in Environmental Planning and Public Policy. Prior to IRI, he was at the Rockefeller Foundation.

Andreas Spiegel

Andreas Spiegel acts as Senior Climate Change Advisor for Swiss Re as part of the Sustainability & Emerging Risk Management unit. His responsibilities include the coordination of Swiss Re’s climate change activities at Group level, including responsibilities in climate research, business development and advocacy. Andreas is a member of the official Swiss Federal climate delegation to the UN climate negotiations and represents Swiss Re on the topic in various external organizations (UNEP FI Climate Change Working Group, Climate Group, Climate Wise, Geneva Association, Economiesuisse - largest umbrella organization representing the Swiss economy, Swiss Insurance Association).

Andreas holds a Master of Science (MSc) degree in Environmental Sciences from the Federal Institute of Technology in Switzerland (ETH), with a main subject in environmental micro-biology and energy technology. In his previous roles as project manager in the consulting industry and as climate change expert for UBS he gained a comprehensive insight into the environmental risk landscape of financial institutions.

Detlef F. Sprinz

Detlef F. Sprinz is a Senior Scientist with the Research Domain “Transdisciplinary Concepts & Methods” of PIK – Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. He has taught international relations, international and European environmental policy, and social science methodology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI; the Faculty of Economics and Social Science, University of Potsdam, Germany; in the international joint MA program in International Relations of the Free University Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, and the University of Potsdam; as well as in the Master of Public Management and the Master of Global Public Policy programs of the University of Potsdam.

His research and publications encompass long-term policy, inter/national institutions & the evaluation of their performance, European & international environmental policy, and modeling political decisions. He is the guest editor of a special issue of Global Environmental Politics on “Long-term Environmental Policy” (August 2009), co-editor of International Relations and Global Climate Change (The MIT Press, 2001), and of Models, Numbers, and Cases: Methods for Studying International Relations (The University of Michigan Press, 2004) in addition to numerous journal articles. Detlef Sprinz is the Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the European Environment Agency, Copenhagen, Denmark; a member of the European Academy, Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany; and serves on the advisory boards of national, European, and international projects and institutions.

Paul Steele

Paul Steele is an economist specialising on the linkages between environment, climate and poverty reduction. Paul has more than 20 years experience working for the UK government, Sri Lankan government and many international organisations including the ADB, European Union, IUCN and World Bank. He holds a MSc in environmental economics from London University and a BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University. He currently works for the United Nations Development Programme based in Bangkok supporting Ministries of Finance, Planning and Local Government across Asia Pacific to integrate environment and climate issues into national plans and budgets.

Roger Street

Roger Street is the Technical Director within the UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) where he leads the Programme’s technical and scientific work aimed at guiding impacts and adaptation assessments, and at developing and delivering new supportive resources and tools, including those related to supporting the use of climate information to inform impacts, vulnerability and adaptation assessments. He came to the UKCIP in January 2006 after working over 32 years within the Canadian federal government. This included work related to understanding climate, impacts and adaptation to a variable and changing climate, working within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change beginning with its first assessment report and leadership of Canada’s first national assessment on climate change impacts (Canada Country Study).

Pablo Suarez

Pablo Suarez is a researcher and consultant on climate, disasters and decisions, as well as associate director of programs of the Red Cross / Red Crescent Climate Centre. His current work addresses institutional integration across disciplines and geographic scales, and the use of innovative tools for climate risk management.

Darren Swanson

Darren Swanson is a sustainable development policy specialist and professional engineer with eighteen years of consulting and research experience. He is currently a senior project manager working with the Measurement & Assessment program at the International Institute for Sustainable Development. Mr. Swanson's work with IISD's Measurement and Assessment program focuses on strategic processes for organizational and societal-wide learning and adaptation including the development of sustainability strategies, indicator information systems, integrated assessment methods and adaptive policy-making approaches. In these capacities Mr. Swanson also provides technical support and project management for IISD's Sustainable Natural Resource Management, and Climate Change programs, and works with IISD's corporate management team in efforts related to organizational monitoring, learning and adaptation.

Susan Tambi Matambo

Susan Tambi Matambo has a Master’s degree in environmental management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. At Yale, she focused her masters research study on the influence of global institutions on domestic environmental policy. She worked in various capacities for the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Secretariat and Evaluation Office from 2004-2010, as well as with the Wildlife Conservation Society in Africa. Susan has lived in Africa, South East Asia and the United States and is currently an independent consultant working on climate change issues

Bach Tan Sinh

Dr. Bach Tan Sinh is the Director of the Department of Science and Technology Human Resource Policy and Organization, National Institute for Science and Technology Policy and Strategic Studies - a policy advisory institution to the Ministry of Science and Technology, Vietnam. He has more than twenty years experience on policy analysis and governance in science, technology, environment and development in Vietnam.

Heikki Toivonen

Professor Heikki Toivonen is a director of the Natural Environment Centre at the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE). His research field includes plant ecology and taxonomy. In recent years he has been involved in biodiversity assessment projects. Toivonen has participated in many CBD COP and SBSTTA meetings, and was a co-chair in the 2nd CBD AHTEG expert group on Biodiversity and Climate Change with focus on connecting biodiversity and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Abu Mostafa Kamal Uddin

Abu Mostafa Kamal Uddin is a climate change specialist working for the United Nations Development Programme. His basic training is in Biology and he has over 20 years of work experience in natural resources management, of which the last six have been in the area of climate change and disaster management. As the program manager of the climate change cell in Bangladesh, he has facilitated the development of large numbers of knowledge products including reports on climate change adaptation research.

Cathy Vaughan

Cathy Vaughan is a staff associate at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, where she coordinates the Latin American program and contributes to the Climate and Society publication series. The co-author of Climate Change: A Reference Handbook, Cathy previously served on the secretariat of the Global Roundtable on Climate Change. She holds master’s degrees from Columbia and Yale universities and served with the U.S. Peace Corps in Zambia.

Lanying Wang

Lanying Wang is is a senior water engineer and currently the Division Chief of the World Bank Project Management Division in the State Office of Comprehensive Agriculture Development under the Ministry of Finance in China. She has about 15 years experience on the project design and implementation management for the comprehensive agriculture development projects including the climate change adaptation and mitigation in irrigated agriculture sector in China, especially for the management of the World Bank, GEF, and the other international trust fund (TF) projects. Before 1997, she worked in the Information Research Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower under the Ministry of Water Resources in China for more than ten years, and focused on the practical study related to the new technologies and best practices in the world in water resources and irrigation management sector. She was a visiting research fellow in International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in USA in 2008, and has a bachelor degree in irrigation and drainage from the Water Resources and Hydropower University of North China.

Ming Xu

Dr. Ming Xu is a “Bairen” professor with the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Director of Beijing Office of the Global Carbon Project. He holds a B.S. on Forest Science and M.S. on Forest Ecology from China and a Ph.D. on Ecosystem Science from University of California at Berkeley. He has teaching and research experience at Rutgers University. His research interests focus on climate change and ecosystem functions through modeling and experimental approaches. He has led a number of national and international projects on climate change adaptation, such as the “Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaptation in the Yangtze River Basin”, the “Development of National Biodiversity and Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan for China” and the “Forest Carbon Accounting and MRVing in Sichuan Province, China”. He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed papers on various topics such as climate change, biodiversity, and ecosystem carbon cycle.

Gary W. Yohe

Gary W. Yohe is the Huffington Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies at Wesleyan University; he has been on the faculty at Wesleyan for more than 30 years. He was educated at the University of Pennsylvania, and received his PhD in Economics from Yale University in 1975. He is the author of more than 100 scholarly articles, several books, and many contributions to media coverage of climate issues. Most of his work has focused attention on the mitigation and adaptation/impacts sides of the climate issue. He is a senior member of the IPCC that was awarded a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Involved with the Panel since the mid 1990's, he served as a Lead Author for four different chapters in the Third Assessment Report that was published in 2001 and as Convening Lead Author for the last chapter of the contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report. In that Assessment, he also worked with the Core Writing Team to prepare the overall Synthesis Report; and he continues to work for the IPCC as it begins preparations for the Fifth Assessment Report that will be published in 2014. Dr. Yohe is also a member of the New York City Panel on Climate Change and the standing Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change of the National Academy of Sciences. He served on the Panel on Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change Adaptation Panel for the National Academy of Sciences' initiative on America's Climate Choices and on the National Research Council Committee on Stabilization Targets for Atmospheric Greenhouse Gas Concentrations.

Carolina Zambrano-Barragán

Carolina Zambrano-Barragán is a biologist and has a master’s degree in Environmental Management from Yale University. She is currently Climate Change Advisor at the Environment Secretariat of the Municipality of Quito’s Metropolitan District and professor at the graduate program on Climate Change at the Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar. Before working for the Municipality, Carolina was Undersecretary of Climate Change for Ecuador and led the negotiating team at the UNFCCC. She has also done research in places like Peru, Madagascar and the Galapagos Islands.

Daouda Zan Diarra

Daouda Zan Diarra leads the Agrometeorological Division of Mali’s Direction Nationale de la Météorologie. For more than 20 years, Diarra has coordinated DNM’s agrometeorological project, providing climate and weather information to rural Malians and helping to foster adaptation to climate change. Diarra was trained in agrometeorology at the AGRHYMET Center in Niamey, Niger. He is a member of the African Association of Remote Sensing and the Environment and of the Association for the Promotion of Sustainable Development.