Key Advisory Committees
The overarching purpose of the Key Advisory Committees is to ensure that the Secretary-General’s 2019 Climate Action Summit delivers major outcomes on enhanced climate ambition.
Steering Committee
The Steering Committee is composed of twenty-five distinguished individuals, chaired by the Special Envoy of the Secretary General for the 2019 Climate Action Summit. The Steering Committee functions as an advisory board to the Summit, providing strategic leadership on each of the nine action streams. It will serve as a platform to guide and support outcomes of the Summit.
Ms. Amina Mohammed
Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations
Mr. Luis Alfonso de Alba
Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for the 2019 Climate Action Summit
Ms. Anne-Sophie Cerisola
Deputy to the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for the 2019 Climate Action Summit
Ms. Elizabeth Cousens
Deputy Chief Executive Officer, UN Foundation
Ms. Patricia Espinosa
Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Ms. Christiana Figueres
Convener of Mission 2020
Ms. Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim
Youth & Mobilization, focusing on indigenous peoples
Ms. Lise Kingo
Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of United Nations Global Compact
Mr. Petteri Taalas
Secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization
Ms. Rachel Kyte
Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All
Mr. Liu Zhenmin
Under Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs of DESA
Ms. Maimunah Mohd Sharif
Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme
Ms. Joyce Msuya
Acting Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme
Mr. David Nabarro
Strategic Director of 4SD (Skills, Systems and Synergies for Sustainable Development) | Supporting the workstream of Nature-Based Solutions
Mr. Robert Orr
Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Climate Change
Ms. Cristiana Pașca Palmer
Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity
Mr. Paul Polman
Co-Chair of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, Member of Board of Directors of the Consumer Goods Forum, Member of Board of United Nations Global Compact
Ms. Debra Roberts
Head of the Environmental Planning and Climate Protection Department of eThekwini Municipality, Durban, South Africa, and Co-Chair of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Mr. Guy Ryder
Director-General of the International Labour Organization
Mr. Dan Smith
Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Mr. Achim Steiner
Under-Secretary-General and Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme
Mr. Nicholas Stern
Professor of Economics and Government of the London School of Economics
Ms. Antha Williams
Head of Environmental Programs, Bloomberg Philanthropies
Mr. Peter Thomson
Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for the Ocean
Ms. Laura Tuck
Vice President for Sustainable Development of the World Bank
Mr. Dominic Waughray
Managing Director of the Centre for Global Public Goods of the World Economic Forum and Member of Managing Board of the World Economic Forum
Ms. Jayathma Wickramanayake
Envoy on Youth
Climate Science Advisory Group
The Climate Science Advisory Group comprises of a group of international climate scientists that are highly recognized and respected in their field. They have significant accomplishments and expertise in different areas of climate science including on mitigation and adaptation.
The Group will provide scientific advice to the Secretary-General, Deputy Secretary-General, Special Envoy and Deputy to the Special Envoy to guide the preparations for the 2019 Climate Action Summit. This includes advice on scientific studies and findings to raise awareness of key scientific facts with leaders, policy makers and other stakeholders. They will also provide guidance to the coalitions leading the nine workstreams of the Climate Action Summit.
Mr. Petteri Taalas
Secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization
Ms. Leena Srivastava
Vice Chancellor of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) School of Advanced Studies
Mr. Navroz Dubash
Professor at the Centre for Policy Research
Ms. Heide Hackmann
Chief Executive Officer of the International Science Council
Ms. Brigitte Knopf
Secretary General of the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change
Ms. Thelma Krug
Director of the Department on Policies to Combat Deforestation of the Ministry of the Environment of Brazil
Ms. Margaret Leinen
Vice Chancellor for Marine Sciences and Director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Dean of the School of Marine Sciences at the University of California in San Diego
Mr. Jian Liu
Chief Scientist of the United Nations Environment Programme
Mr. Yacob Mulugetta
Professor of Energy and Development Policy at the University College London
Mr. Joeri Rogelj
Lecturer in Climate Change and the Environment at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, and Senior Research Scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
Ms. Maisa Rojas
Director, Center for Climate and Resilience Research CR2
Ms. Lisa Schipper
Environmental Social Science Research Fellow at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford
Ambition Advisory Group
The Ambition Advisory Group is composed of distinguished individuals with vast experience in climate change policy, implementation and negotiations, and will have the challenge of guiding the structure of the 2019 Climate Action Summit. The Group will provide support to the Secretary-General in engagements towards delivering truly transformational, impactful, yet actionable outcomes for the Summit. The Ambition Advisory Group will help the Special Envoy for the 2019 Climate Action Summit and his team to define the parameters of ambition and make decisions on what outcomes from the nine workstreams are “summitable” and could be presented at the Summit.
The other important task of this Group, which is intended to outlive the Summit itself, is to support the Secretary-General and his team to maintain the momentum beyond the Summit towards the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth Conferences of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP25 and COP26) in 2019 and 2020. The Group will help to ensure that the Paris Agreement mechanism is maintained, and its use maximized to deliver its objectives.
Ms. Laurence Tubiana
Chief Executive Officer of the European Climate Foundation
Mr. Manuel Pulgar-Vidal
Leader of the Global Climate & Energy Practice at the World Wildlife Fund
Mr. Peter Betts
Senior Fellow at the European Climate Foundation
Mr. Selwin Hart
Executive Director of the Caribbean Constituency at Inter-American Development Bank
Mr. Ajay Mathhur
Director General of The Energy and Resources Institute
Ms. Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim
Youth & Mobilization, focusing on indigenous peoples
Mr. Alf Wills
Managing Director of Summit Outcomes