Nitin Desai
Member, Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change, India; Distinguished Fellow, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).

Nitin Desai is a Distinguished Fellow at TERI and a member of the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change in India. He was formerly Under-Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs in the UN at New York. He was the Deputy Secretary General of the 1992 Rio Summit and Secretary-General of the 2002 Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development.

Jan Egeland
Director, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs; UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator (2003-2006).

Jan Egeland currently serves as a Special Advisor to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Mr. Egeland was also appointed as the new director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) in September 2007. Prior to these appointments, Mr. Egeland was UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator from 2003 to 2006. Earlier in his career, he served as State Secretary in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1990-1997). He was also Director for the International Department of the Norwegian Red Cross, Head of Development Studies at the Henry Dunant Institute in Geneva, and a radio and television international news reporter with the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. Jan Egeland studied Political Science at the University of Oslo and was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, USA.

Saleemul Huq
Senior Fellow, Climate Change, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), London.

Saleemul Huq currently serves as a Senior Fellow on Climate Change at the International Institute for Environment and Development. Huq 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 the lead author of the chapter on Adaptation and Mitigation in the IPCC’s fourth assessment report. He previously served as the Executive Director of Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies.

Andreas Merkl
Director, Global Initiatives, ClimateWorks Foundation, San Francisco.

Andreas Merkl is the Director of Global Initiatives for ClimateWorks Foundation. From 1997 through 2007, he was a principal at California Environmental Associates, a San Francisco-based consultancy. From 1989 through 1995, Mr. Merkl worked with McKinsey and Company, where he co-founded the North American Environmental Practice. Mr. Merkl is also the Chairman of SeaChange Capital, a San Francisco-based venture capital fund. Mr. Merkl has also worked in senior position with CH2MHILL, and as founding director of the Conservation and Community Investment Fund. He holds graduate degrees from Harvard University and UC Berkeley in Business Administration and Natural Resource Analysis, respectively.

Rajendra K. Pachauri
Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); Director General, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI); Director, Yale Climate and Energy Institute.

Rajendra K. Pachauri is the Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which carries out a comprehensive scientific assessment of all aspects of climate change. Mr. Pachauri is also Director-General of The Energy and Resources Institute, New Delhi, India, which works for the development of solutions to global problems in the fields of sustainable development, energy and the environment. Beginning his career in the Indian Railways, Mr. Pachauri has since taught at the Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad, where from 1979 to 1981 he served as Director of Consulting and Applied Research, and at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies of Yale University, USA (2000). He was an advisor on energy and sustainable management to the Administrator, United Nations Development Programme from 1994 to 1999, and since 1992 has served as President of the Asian Energy Institute. Mr. Pachauri is the author of numerous books and articles and holds PhDs in industrial engineering and in economics from the North Carolina State University, USA.

Johan Rockström
Executive Director, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and Stockholm Resilience Centre.

Johan Rockström is the Executive Director of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the Stockholm Resilience Centre. He is a Professor in Natural Resource Management at Stockholm University and a guest Professor at the Beijing Normal University. He is a leading international scientist on global water resources and sustainable development, with more than 15 years experience of research on agriculture, water resources and ecosystems and integrated water resource management in tropical regions, with more than 50 peer reviewed scientific articles and several books in fields of global environmental change, resilience and sustainability, agricultural water management, watershed hydrology, global water resources and food production, and eco-hydrology. He has served as advisor to several international organizations, governments and the European Union on sustainability and development, and is a frequented key-note speaker to several international research, policy and development arenas on sustainable development, global environmental change, and resilience thinking. He serves on several international committees and boards, including the scientific advisory board of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact research, the scientific overview committee of ICSU, the executive board of the Resilience Alliance, and the board of WaterAid Sweden.

Jeffrey Sachs
Director, The Earth Institute, Columbia University , New York; Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development and of Health Policy and Management,Columbia University; Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals.

Jeffrey D. Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is also Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. From 2002 to 2006, he was Director of the UN Millennium Project and Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals, the internationally agreed goals to reduce extreme poverty, disease, and hunger by the year 2015. Sachs is also President and Co-Founder of Millennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit organization aimed at ending extreme global poverty. He is widely considered to be the leading international economic advisor of his generation. In 2004 and 2005 he was named among the 100 most influential leaders in the world by Time Magazine.

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber
Founding Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK); Member, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber is director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) since its foundation in 1992. He is chair of the German Advisory Council on Global Change and was appointed Chief Government Advisor on Climate and Related Issues by the German Federal Government for the G8 and EU presidencies in 2007. As a member of the High Level Expert Group he also advises the President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso on energy and climate change issues. Schellnhuber is Ambassador for the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and longstanding Member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He authored or co-authored more than 200 articles and about forty books on theoretical physics, environmental analysis and sustainability science. In 2004 he was awarded the title “Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire” (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II. In 2007 he received the German Environment Prize for his scientific work in the field of climate impact research and its dissemination to politicians and the public.

Barbara Stocking
Chief Executive, Oxfam GB, Oxford, England

Barbara Stocking currently serves as the Chief Executive of Oxfam Great Britain — a non-governmental organisation with projects in some 64 countries throughout the world. Since joining Oxfam, she has led the organisation’s responses to humanitarian crises in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan and Oxfam’s humanitarian actions during the Indian Ocean Tsunami crisis and the Pakistan earthquake. Prior to becoming Chief Executive she worked for the World Health Organisation in West Africa, was Director of the King’s Fund Centre for Health Service Development, and held senior positions in the UK National Health Service. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Natural Science from Cambridge University, and a Masters degree in Reproductive Physiology from the University of Wisconsin, USA.

 
Photo: Holcim Foundation

Klaus Töpfer
Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme (1998-2006).

Klaus Toepfer became Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and Director-General of the UN Office at Nairobi (UNON) in February 1998. He was also appointed Acting Executive Director of the UN Centre for Human Settlements from July 1998 to August 2000. Before joining the United Nations, Klaus Toepfer held several posts in the Federal Government of Germany including Federal Minister of Regional Planning, Building and Urban Development as well as Coordinator of the Transfer of Parliament. He held office as Federal Minister of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety from 1987-1994. Klaus Toepfer is widely recognized as having spearheaded environmental policy as Minister of Environment in his home country Germany. He is known internationally for his personal commitment to promote environment and sustainable development, and to fight for the cause of developing nations.

Margareta Wahlström
United Nations Assistant Secretary-General, Disaster Risk Reduction; The Secretary-General appointed Margareta Wahlström as UN Assistant; Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator in 2007.

Ms. Wahlström recently served in the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) as Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General responsible for relief, reconstruction and development and as Chief of Staff of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General. From 2000 to 2002, Ms. Wahlström worked as an independent consultant on issues related to emergency response and strategic and organizational development. From 1989 to 2000, Ms. Wahlström worked at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Geneva, where her last assignment included provision of operational and strategic direction and leadership in the IFRC response to disasters. Earlier in her career, Ms. Wahlström worked for non-governmental organizations, as well as in the private sector. She has worked in South-East Asia, Latin America and Africa.

Walter Fust
CEO/Director-General, Global Humanitarian Forum; Chair, Steering Group, Human Impact Report: Climate Change.

Walter Fust served for 15 years as the Director General of the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation, including responsibility for both humanitarian assistance and development aid. Fust is chairman of UNESCO’s International Program for Development and Communication (IPDC) and President of Globalethics.net. He serves as member of the International Forum of Federations (Ottawa), a global network on federalism, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the new library of Alexandria/Egypt. He is also a member of the Board of the International Risk Governance Council/Geneva and serves as a board member on a number of different philanthropic foundations. Fust has been personal advisor to the President of the Swiss Confederation (1985). From 1990 to 1993 he served as Secretary General of the Swiss Ministry of Interior with national responsibility for science/research, environment, culture, social affairs, and public health, among other portfolios.