Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre

Pacific Community

Litea Biukoto currently serves as the Team Leader for Disaster Risk at the Pacific Community (SPC) and has more than 15 years of experience. Previously, she served as a Programme Manager for the Pacific Resilience Programme and as a Senior Advisor for Risk Reduction at the Pacific Community.

Universidad Panamericana

Victor Cardenas is a Professor at the Universidad Panamericana in Mexico and his areas of expertise include catastrophe and climate change risk financing. Previously, he has worked as a senior consultant at the World Bank and at the Inter-American Development Bank.

Climate Services Branch, World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

Amir Delju currently works as a Senior Scientific Officer in the Climate Services branch at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). His areas of expertise include climate monitoring, data analysis, vulnerability assessment, and cataloguing high impact events. Previously, he served as Senior Scientific Coordinator in the Climate Adaptation and Prediction branch at WMO and as a meteorological observation and climate expert at the Iranian Meteorological Organization (IRIMO).

University Mohammed VI Polytechnic, Morocco

Fatima Driouech currently serves as executive coordinator of the Adaptation Metrics and Techniques cluster within the University Mohammed VI Polytechnic, Morocco. She is Vice-Chair of Working Group I of the IPCC and she was lead author of the fifth IPCC report. She previously served as the Vice-Chair of the Standing Committee on Climate Services of the World Meteorological Organization and served as the Head of the Meteorological Research Center of the Moroccan Meteorology. She is also involved in training and capacity building as a teacher in various Moroccan educational institutions on climatology and climate change. She led and participated in several studies on climate change especially on Morocco and North Africa and has different publications in this area.

International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)

Anne Hammill currently serves as the Associate Vice President of Resilience at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). Her most recent work is on developing and applying decision-support tools for climate change adaptation, undertaking participatory field research on livelihoods and climate change and building capacity of governments and civil society to integrate climate risk into policies and field projects. She has also worked with organizations in Eastern and Central Africa to better understand and address the links between conflict and conservation activities.

Insurance Development Forum (IDF)

Ekhosuehi Iyahen is the Secretary General for Insurance Development Forum (IDF). Her areas of expertise include comprehensive disaster risk management, disaster risk financing, risk analytics, risk transfer, insurance, public private partnerships, and climate adaptation. Previously, she served as the Director of Policy and Technical Advisory Services at the African Risk Capacity and as Vice President and Facility Supervisor at the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility.

United Nations University - Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS)

Sönke Kreft serves as the Chief Climate Risk Strategist at the United Nations University – Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) and as the Executive Director at the Munich Climate Insurance Initiative. His areas of expertise include climate risk insurance, climate risk management, risk governance, financial protection approaches, adaptive social protection. Previously, he served as Associate Academic Officer for the Environmental Migration, Social Vulnerability and Adaptation division at UNU-EHS and as a Team Leader, International Climate Policy at Germanwatch.

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR)

Animesh Kumar works as the Head of Office of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) in Bonn. His areas of expertise include comprehensive (climate and disaster) risk management, disaster loss and damage accounting, the Sendai Framework and SDG monitoring. Previously, he served as Deputy Head of Asia-Pacific and Africa in UNDRR.

CARE International UK

Sheri Lim currently serves as the Director of the Syria Resilience Initiative for CARE International. Her areas of expertise include community-based climate change adaptation, natural resource management, forecast-based anticipatory action, and resilience in fragile and conflict affected states. She was one of the founding representatives of the START Network FOREWARN group on forecast-based early action and involved as a civil society representative for the InsuResilience Global Partnership. Previously, she has worked with various agencies and governments developing national climate change adaptation plans and legislation, supported community and grassroots levels on natural resource management and disaster preparedness programming, and helped develop and deliver climate change and resilience training for universities and civil society.

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

Reinhard Mechler currently serves as the Head of the Systemic Risk and Resilience Group at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and as a Senior lecturer at the University for Economics and Business in Vienna. He has more than 20 years of experience and his areas of expertise include socioeconomics of natural disaster risk management and climate adaptation, climate risk and resilience analysis, risk management and climate change policy, and governance. Previously, he served as Visiting Professor at the Karl-Franzens-University in Graz.

Overseas Development Institute (ODI)

Rebecca Nadin is the Director for the Global Risks and Resilience programme at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and has more than 15 years of experience. Currently, she leads a multidisciplinary team of analysts to pioneer policy-driven research on emerging risk vectors and resulting opportunities to reduce vulnerability, build resilience and drive transformative and sustainable change. She is also an adjunct lecturer at the Centre for Environment and Population Health at Griffith University in Australia. Previously, she served as Director of the Adapting to Climate Change in China Project (ACCC Phase I and II) and as the Deputy Director of the British Council’s Global Sustainability Programme.

Independent Expert

Linda Ann Siegele is an Independent Legal Consultant and Trainer. Previously, she served as Staff Lawyer at the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development (FIELD).

Global Engagement Director at the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative

Harjeet Singh currently acts as the Global Engagement Director to the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. Previously, he served as Head of Global Political Strategy and Senior Advisor on Climate Impacts at the Climate Action Network. His areas of expertise include social protection, displacement and migration, emergency response and rehabilitation, disaster risk management, loss and damage finance. Previously, he served as a Board Member of the Climate Action Network International (CAN-I) and the Global Network of Civil Society Organisations for Disaster Reduction (GNDR).

Independent Expert

David Stevens is an Independent Expert with three decades of experience. He currently serves as Climate Resilience Senior Specialist for The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) at the United Nations. His areas of expertise include climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction ensuring alignment with local, regional and national development policies and programmes across Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean and Africa, mostly in LDCs and SIDS. Previously, he has worked for the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank.

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC); IPCC WGII Vice Chair

Adelle Thomas serves as Senior Director of Climate Adaptation at NRDC and is Vice Chair of Working Group II for the IPCC Seventh Assessment Cycle. She previously served as a Lead Author for the IPCC 6th Assessment Report Working Group II, a Lead Author for the IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C and a Contributing Author for the IPCC 5th Assessment Report. She founded and served as the first Director of the Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience Research Centre at University of The Bahamas. She has nearly 20 years of experience and her areas of expertise include policies and mechanisms to address loss and damage, loss and damage in SIDS, non-economic loss and damage, particularly human mobility in the context of climate change and limits and constraints to adaptation.

Sustainable Development Specialist, Planning Institute of Jamaica, Jamaica;

Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage

Professor, Greater Georgetown, Guyana;

Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage

Paulette Bynoe is a Full Professor and Dean of the School of Graduate Studies and Research at the University of Guyana. She has approximately 30 years of professional experience as an interdisciplinary-trained Environmental Specialist, teaching graduate courses in community disaster risk management, environmental impact assessment, environmental research methods, and environmental resources policy.  Her research interests include natural resources and environmental policy, sustainable livelihoods, climate change and disaster vulnerability and resilience, as well as environmental education.  

Professor Bynoe holds a PhD in Geography (University of Sussex, UK), an MPhil in Environmental Education (University of Bradford), and a BA in Geography (University of Guyana). In 2015, she was awarded the Golden Arrow of Achievement by the Government of Guyana for her contributions to environmental education, training, and research that inform policies on natural resource management. She has served in various capacities regionally and internationally, including Lead Climate Change Negotiator for Guyana (2016-2019), Lead Climate Change Negotiator for G77 and China (2020), Mentor for the Commonwealth Futures Climate Research Cohort (2021), and AOSIS Coordinator for High-Level Climate Actions (2019-2020).  She is a Member of the Global Water Partnership (International) Steering Committee, Chair of the Global Water Partnership-Caribbean, and a Member of the Pool of Experts for the World Ocean Assessment III.  Professor Bynoe also Co-Chaired the Informal Advisory Group on Informal Advisory Group on Technical and Scientific Cooperation under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD) and has recently been elected as a Member of the Executive Committee for the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage. 
 

Research Scholar, Euro-Mediterranean Centre on Climate Change;

Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage

Climate Change Expert, Project Manager, Reanimation Package of Reforms Coalition, Ukraine;

Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage

Viktoriia Shtets has more than 15 years of work experience and her areas of expertise include climate policies, sustainable development, adaptation to climate change, particularly in agriculture, land issues, technology transfer, and capacity building. In 2020 she was engaged as a climate change expert for the German-Ukrainian Agricultural Policy Dialogue. Previously, she served as the Policy Dialogue Coordinator for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), as a Senior Expert for the Climate Strategy division of the Climate Policy department in the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine and as a Senior climate change Expert with the State Environmental Investment Agency of Ukraine.