Speakers

Gunilla Carlsson is the Swedish Minister for Development Cooperation and Chair of Commission on Climate Change and Development. She is First Vice Chair of the Moderate Party in Sweden. She was born in Höör and did accounting and auditing courses, and non-degree courses at Linköping University. After working as an accountant and accounting manager, she joined the Moderate Party office in 1994. She was Vice Chair of the Nordic Young Conservative Union and Vice Chair of the International Young Democratic Union. In 1995 she was elected to the European Parliament and served until 2002, when she was elected to the Swedish Parliament for Stockholm. From 1999 to 2006 Gunilla Carlsson was Leader of the Moderate Party delegation in the European Parliament, from 2004 to 2006 she was Vice Chair of European People’s Party (EPP). In 1999, she was elected Second Vice Chairman of the Moderate Party, in 2003 she became First Vice Chair. At the Swedish Parliament she was member of numerous Committees, amon others oft the Committee on Foreign Affairs, on EU Affairs and on Education. From 2004 to 2006 she occupied the Deputy Chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Stavros Dimas – EU Commissioner for Environment
Stavros C. Dimas has studied law and economics in Greece and the USA and has worked as a lawyer for the World Bank and Sullivan & Cromwell, a Wall Street Law Firm. He has been elected to the Greek Parliament ten consecutive times since 1977 and has held leading posts in Greek politics. From March 2004 till October 2004 he was EU Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs. Since November 2004 he is EU Commissioner for the Environment.

Ottmar Edenhofer is Deputy-Director and Chief-Economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) where he leads Research Domain III “Sustainable Solutions”. Since July 2008 he teaches as professor of “Economics of Climate Change” at the Berlin Institute of Technology. Edenhofer was appointed joint Chair of Working Group “Mitigation of Climate Change” of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in September 2008. His research has influenced the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change substantially. Edenhofer is key climate change advisor to federal foreign minister and deputy-chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Bo Ekman is the Founder and Chairman of Tällberg Foundation and Associated Advisor at Tällberg Advisors AB. Previously Chairman/Chief Executive of Sifo Management Group and Member of the Management Board of Volvo. He founded the Tällberg Foundation in 1981, an international non-profit organisation, and is the organizer of yearly workshops since 1981 and the larger yearly Tällberg Forum since 2005. Mr. Ekman is advisor to boards of directors and top managers in business environment analysis, strategic development, etc. Mr Ekman has advised the former Secretary General Kofi Annan, the UN Executive Office, and undertaken major projects for the UNDP. In the early 1980’s, he was the Chief Architect behind the Roundtable of European Industrialists.

Andre Faaij – Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Andre Faaij is appointed as associate professor at the Copernicus Institute (Faculty of Science) of the Utrecht University. He has a background in chemistry and environmental sciences and holds a Ph.D. on energy production from biomass and wastes. He worked as visiting researcher at the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies - Princeton University and at King’s College - London University. His main research experience and interests concern energy system and scenario analysis and modelling, bio-energy and other renewables, bio-energy markets and international trade, land use and land use change, sustainability assessments of energy systems, alternative transport fuels, decarbonization of fossil fuels (capture and storage of CO2, hydrogen economy), waste treatment, material & energy efficiency, technological learning and innovation in energy systems, GHG balances & accounting, energy and research policies. He works as an advisor for governments, the EC, IEA, the UN system, IPCC, GEF, OECD, WEF, the energy sector & industry, strategic consultancy, NGO’s, etc. He is Task Leader of Task 40 under the Bio-energy Agreement of the International Energy Agency on ‘Sustainable International Bio-energy Trade’ and, in the same framework, acted as national representative in several other tasks. Earlier, he was Lead Author for the World Energy Assessment of the United Nations, the WorldWatch Institute’s book on Biofuels for the 21st Century, the IPCC 4th assessment report and IEA’s World Energy Outlook.. He published over 450 titles in scientific journals, reports, books and proceedings, (co-) organized a range of international workshops and conferences and is frequently lecturing across the globe.

Franz Fischler joined the Tyrolean Chamber of Agriculture in 1979, after studying agriculture and holding various academic posts. He became director of the Chamber in 1984. In 1989 he was appointed Federal Minister of Agriculture and Forestry in Austria where he played an important role in the negotiations for Austria’s accession to the European Union. From 1995 until 2004 he was European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development and from 1999 onwards for Fisheries as well. One of his biggest milestones in the European Union was the reform of the Common Agriculture Policy. Today Franz Fischler is president of the Ecosocial Forum Europe and doing consultancy work.

Saleemul Huq is Director of the Climate Change Group of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) based in London, UK. He is a specialist on the linkages between climate change and sustainable development with special focus on the perspective of developing countries, and environmental planning in developing countries. His research focuses on vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in least developed countries. Saleemul Huq has been Executive Director of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies, advisor to the Scientific and Advisory Panel (STAP) for the Global Environment Facility, Washington, USA and advisor to the Government of Bangladesh on preparation of the National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA).

Wahu Kaara, Global Social Justice Activist, Kenya
Wahu Kaara is a long-time political activist and leader who brings a range of feminist analyses and alternative women- and justice-centred perspectives to her work. She ran for parliament in Kenya in 2002 and 2007 and was a delegate to the country’s Constitutional Conference, which in 2004 completed drafting a new national constitution whose deeply democratic proposals were rejected by the government. She has served as Director of the Kenyan Debt Relief Network, Chair of the Steering Committee of the East African Coalition on Economic, Social, Cultural Rights, Co-ordinator of the debt campaign of the African Women’s Economic Policy Network and Member of the Steering Committee of the World Social Forum, which was hosted in Nairobi, Kenya in January 2007.

Ashok Khosla is Chairman of the Development Alternatives Group and President of the Club of Rome. He has been a member of the Government of India’s National Security Advisory Board and Scientific Advisory Council to the Cabinet and has served as advisor to government and international agencies and as board member of IUCN, WWF, IISD and other bodies. He was awarded the UN Sasakawa Environment Prize in 2002 and the Schwab Foundation’s Award for Outstanding Social Entrepreneur in 2004.

Peter Kruse – Bremen University, nextpractice GmbH, Germany
Peter Kruse is the managing partner of nextpractice in Bremen. He is professor for general and organisational psychology at the University of Bremen. Peter Kruse worked for over 15 years at several German universities in the field of brain research. His main topics have been the processing of complexity and the autonomous order formation in intelligent networks. His consulting company nextpractice is specialised in utilizing collective intelligence for the enhancement of economical and social processes.

Vesile Kulaçoglu – Director of the Trade and Environment Division, World Trade Organisation
Vesile Kulaçoglu is Director of the Trade and Environment Division of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The Division's main areas of work include trade and environment negotiations, regular work of the Committees on Trade and Environment and Technical Barriers to Trade and trade and labour. Prior to her present function she worked on various WTO Agreements having acted as Secretary to the Committees on Technical Barriers to Trade and Government Procurement among others. She has a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University, New York, and an Economics degree from the University of Geneva, Switzerland.

Nebojsa Nakicenovic, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria
Nebojsa Nakicenovic is Professor of Energy Economics at the Vienna University of Technology, Acting Deputy Director of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and Director of the Global Energy Assessment (GEA). He is also an Associate Editor of the International Journal on Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Editor of International Journal on Climate Policy, Member of Editorial Board of the International Journal of Energy Sector Management, a Coordinating Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), Fourth Assessment Report, and Coordinating Lead Author of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Prof. Nakicenovic was Director, Global Energy Perspectives, World Energy Council, Convening Lead Author of the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Convening Lead Author of the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, Lead Author of Third Assessment Report of the IPCC, , Convening Lead Author of the World Energy Assessment: Energy and the Challenge of Sustainability, and Guest Professor at the Technical University

Gérard Onesta – Vice President oft the European Parliament
Vice president of the European Parliament, he is responsible for its Agora's Citizen initiative and its Environmental Management Scheme. Deeply convinced that climate change is one of the major challenges faced by our society and by the need of listening to the civil society proposals, he was in charge of the Agora Citizen's initiative whose second edition was devoted to climate change. By his suggestions on constitutional affairs, among them the Plan A+ to relaunch the ratification process, he promotes federalism and dialogue with all the European citizens.

Cédric Philibert, International Energy Agency, France
A former science journalist, Cédric Philibert has been an advisor to the French Minister for the Environment, then to the CEO of the French Agency for the Environment and Energy Efficiency. In 1990 he published two books on climate change, and on renewable energies. At the International Energy Agency he is in charge of the evolution of climate policy, has authored many papers and co-authored “Beyond Kyoto” (2002) and “Act Locally Trade Globally” (2005).”

Franz Josef Radermacher is the director of FAW/n (Research Institute for Applied Knowledge Processing), Ulm, Germany, and holds a faculty position for Data Bases and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Ulm. In 1997 he received the Scientific Award of the German Society for Mathematics, Economics and Operations Research. He is member of the Club of Rome and of several national and international advisory boards, as well as president of the German “Federal Association for Economic Development and Foreign Trade” (BWA).

Johan Rockström – Executive Director of the Stockholm Environment Institute
Professor Johan Rockström is Executive Director of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) since 2004, and at the same time the Executive Director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, a newly established international research centre on sustainability research between the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, Stockholm University and SEI. He has more than 50 peer review scientific publications and more than 15 years of applied research experience in tropical regions of the world, with research ranging from applied resilience research, watershed management to global environmental change, with a focus on water resources and global sustainability.

John Schellnhuber CBE is founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). From 2001 to 2005 he was Research Director at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Norwich, UK. He is Vice Chair of the German Advisory Council on Global Change and a member of the High Level Expert Group that advises the President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso on energy and climate change issues. 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 and its dissemination to politicians and the public.

Lord Nicholas Stern is a senior economist and a world leader in the field of economic development and growth. He is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government at London School of Economics, where he is also head of the India Observatory within the LSE's Asia Research Centre, and Chairman of the new Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment (announced in April 2008). Previously, having held academic posts at the Universities of Oxford and Warwick and the London School of Economics, he then worked as Chief Economist for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and subsequently as Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank. Lord Stern is a Fellow of British Academy and of the Econometric Society, an Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He will be President of the European Economic Association in 2009. He was Director of Policy and Research for the UK government’s Africa Commission, and in 2005, he was appointed by the UK government to conduct the influential Stern Review, which analysed the economic costs of climate change and policy on the management of climate change. He was knighted for services to economics in 2004 and made a cross-bench life peer as Baron Stern of Brentford in 2007.

Pavan Sukhdev is Managing Director and Head of Deutsche Bank’s Global Markets business in India, including its Fixed Income and Equities divisions. He founded and is now Chairman of Global Markets Centre (GMC), Mumbai, the global division’s dedicated “front-office off-shoring“ hub, a market first of its kind. Mr. Sukhdev pursues his interests in environmental economics and in nature conservation through his work with the Green Indian States Trust (GIST) and other NGO’s. GIST has researched, developed and published methodology & empirical work on comprehensive “Green Accounting“ for India and its States, a first among developing countries (www.gistindia.org). He was recently appointed to lead the G8+5 project to write a Stern-like report on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (“TEEB“).

Hosts (Member of the European Parliament)

Jens Holm is member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, the Temp. Committe on Climate Change and the Delegation to the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly. He is substitute of the Committee on International Trade, the Committee on Budgetary Control, the Temporary Committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transport and illegal detention of prisoners and the Delegation for relations with Switzerland, Iceland and Norway and to the European Economic Area (EEA) Joint Parliamentary Committee. Curriculum vitae: Secondary School at Katrinelunds Gymnasium, Sundsvall, studies in Salamanca, Spain, Masters Degree in Sociology, freelance journalist (1993-2003); investigative journalist at the Swedish Animal Rights Society (1997-2003) and press officer at the Social Welfare Department in Stockholm City (2003-2006).  Books: För vår rätt och värdighet (For our Rights and Dignity) - Young people on daily life in Colombia and Sweden. Food, Environment, Justice - The Effects of Meat Consumption on the Environment and the Global Food Supply. The livestock industry and climate - EU makes bad worse.  Documentary films: Apor till salu (Monkeys for sale) - On Swedish imports of monkeys from China for animal experiments an many more.

Vittorio Prodi, Graduate in physics (University of Bologna, 1959); lecturer in nuclear measurements (1970). University lecturer and researcher in leading national and international institutes; associate professor in the Physics Department of the University of Bologna (since 1983). Chairman of the Provincial Council of Bologna (1995-2004); member of the provincial representation of the Conference 'State - Cities - LocalGovernments' and of the 'Unified Conference' (State, Cities, localgovernments and Regions) (2001-2004). Author of numerous publications and of five international patents.

Othmar Karas has a humanistic academic education, which was topped by postgraduate studies in a European and International Business Law. During successful years in Austria's national politics serving as Member of Parliament and inter alia as Secretary General of Austria's Peoples Party, Othmar Karas continued his political career in the European Parliament from 1999 on. His experience in the international financial sector he gained from various management functions in Austria's largest insurance group in previous days is an excellent basis for his work in the ECON Committee responsible for economy and monetary policy nowadays. Since his start in the European Parliament Othmar Karas also serves as Vice-President and Treasurer of the EPP-ED Group.

Jo Leinen has been a member of the European Parliament for the Socialist Group since 1999. He is chairman of the EP`s constitutional affairs committee and substitute member of the Committee for Foreign Affairs. Furthermore he is a member of the delegation for the relations with South Asia and of the delegation for relations with India. From 1985-1994 he was Minister for environment in the German state of Saarland.

Caroline Lucas is a Green MEP for the South East England Region and is also the leader of the Green Party of England and Wales. She has been a member of the European Parliament since 1999. Caroline sits on both the Environment and Trade Committees and is noted for campaigning and writing on climate change, Green economics, peace, alternatives to globalisation, trade justice, animal welfare and food.

Anders Wijkman, born in Stockholm 1944, University degree in political science at University of Stockholm, Member of the Swedish Parliament (1970-1978), Secretary General of the Swedish Red Cross, Secretary General of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, Director General of the Swedish Agency for Research Cooperation with Developing Countries (SAREC), Policy Director of UNDP, Ambassador at the Swedish Foreign Ministry, since 1999 Anders Wijkman is a Member of the European Parliament. Other ongoing commitments: Vice President - Club of Rome, President - GLOBE-EU (Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment - EU), Chairman - Plan Sverige, Board member - Tällberg Foundation, Expert Group Chairman for the Swedish Commission on Climate Change and Development. Mr. Wijkman has been a member of several government task forces on issues related to environment, sustainable development, energy, foreign aid etc. In April 2001 Mr Wijkman participated in the high-level expert panel on “ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) for development”, appointed by the UN secretary general. Mr Wijkman is the author of several books on issues related to disaster prevention, sustainable development, Hiv/Aids etc. His latest book "The Needless Tragedies: Man and Disasters" was published in 2005.