COP27 Learning Partners Consortium

Speakers

Lord Murray Elder 

Lord Elder obtained an MA in Economic History from the University of Edinburgh and has held several important posts in his career. He was General Secretary of the Labour Party in Scotland (1988-1992) and Chief of Staff to the Leader of the Labour Party, John Smith (1992-1994). In 1994, he became Political Adviser to Tony Blair.

Lord Elder was also Adviser to Donald Dewar (1996-97) and Special Adviser to Donald Dewar (1997-99) when he was the Secretary of State for Scotland. In the latter post, he worked closely with Donald Dewar on the preparation of the White Paper on Scotland and on the details of the subsequent devolution bill. He has been a member of the House of Lords since July 1999. Lord Elder was a member of the House of Lords Select Committee on the working of the Monetary Policy Committee (2000-2001). He is currently a member of the House of Lords Economic Affairs Select Committee and an Adviser to the Smith Institute, an increasingly influential think-tank. Lord Elder is also Patron of the Adam Smith Foundation, the fundraising unit of the Fife Further Education College. He was later appointed as Chancellor of Al-Maktoum College of Higher Education on 15 January 2003 and is also the Chair of the College Council.

Dr Ana Paula Fonseca

Dr Ana Paula Fonseca is a Lecturer in Strategy and Sustainability and the Programme Lead MBA Strategic Project Management and Engineering Management at the Edinburgh Napier University. Ana Paula is the Employability Skills Programme subject lead and works on a research project funded by the UK Government – Business for Good: Empowering SMEs to embrace de SDGs in Post-COVID Scotland.

Sabrina Agius

Sabrina is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of GSE Technologies. First, as a media specialist with a substantial background in journalism, marketing, and communications, Sabrina exuded the right balance of operational, reportorial, and advisory experience. With an entrepreneurial mindset and a vested interest in building for the future, she established a media company that has set out to project brand imagery and deliver valuable impact. As a professional that has serviced both the public and private sectors in managerial capacities, she possesses a heavy background in leadership and has so far been the main driver in the quest to make GSE Technologies a household name in the Green, Sustainable, and Eco industries.

Since collaboratively establishing GSE Technologies, Sabrina has worked with a range of innovative firms within and outside of Europe both in the bid to continually apply disruptive thinking and to ensure that the net-zero vision becomes a reality. Sabrina has a flair for environmental and human rights initiatives. Sabrina sits on the board of the Women’s Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Malta (WICCI) bagging the position of Sustainability Councillor. She holds an M.A in Creativity and Innovation from the University of Malta, with a degree in communications

Speakers

Dr. Melissa Brown Goodall

Melissa Brown Goodall is the inaugural Senior Director of the Environmental Innovations Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania and the Program Director of the Global University Climate Forum. Formed in 2020, the mission of the Initiative is to “catalyze solutions to significant real-world environmental challenges” by fostering collaboration across disciplines, leading inclusive and dynamic programming on- and off-campus, and forming strategic partnerships. Before joining Penn in 2021, Melissa was at Yale University – first with the School of the Environment, then with the Center for Environmental Law and Policy, and finally with the Office of Sustainability. Prior to her career in academia, Melissa worked for UNDP managing programs focused on addressing climate change in the Global South. She is an external advisor of the United Nations University Institute for Advanced Sustainability and a strategic advisor to the Center for Governance and Sustainability at UMass Boston. She earned her PhD and MS degrees from Antioch University and her BFA from New York University.

Prof. Eugenie Birch

Eugenie Birch is the Lawrence C. Nussdorf Chair of Urban Research and Education. She teaches courses in global urbanization and the doctoral seminar and serves as chair, Graduate Group in City and Regional Planning, co-director, Penn Institute for Urban Research, co-editor, City in the 21st Century Series, University of Penn Press and co-editor, SSRN Urban Research e-journal. With Penn IUR she recently completed a project “Entreprenuership & Innovation in Connecticut’s Higher Education System,” for the state of Connecticut.

Professor Birch has been active in the field’s professional and civic organizations in the United States and abroad. She is president, General Assembly of Partners (GAP), the engagement platform for the implementation of the UN’s New Urban Agenda and associated global agreements, co-chair, Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Thematic Group on Cities

Speakers

Dr Constantin Tsakas

Senior Programme Officer – Sustainable Development Policies

Center for Mediterranean Integration – UNOPS

Constantin Tsakas works at CMI-UNOPS as Sustainable Development Policies Senior Programme Officer. He leads the programs of CMI’s Climate Change Resilience pillar, specifically the “Mediterranean Forum on Energy and Climate Change”, the “Regional Knowledge program on Water”, and the “Territorial Resilience to Climate Change” program. He also actively contributes to activities of CMI’s Co-development and Integration pillar, leading analytical work and knowledge production on socioeconomic and political economy dimensions of regional integration (Trade, Global Value Chains, link with SDGs) and to the Dialogue of the Two Shores Technical Platform. He first joined the CMI-World Bank in 2020 as a Senior Policy Analyst. He led CMI’s analytical work on post-Covid development strategies and co-wrote the World Bank’s MENA Economic Update 2020. Before that, he was the General Manager of Institut de la Méditerranée working for the emergence of sustainable development models and greater involvement of civil society in public policies. As General Secretary of the FEMISE think-tank network (2014-2020), he also worked on reinforcing regional dialogue and research on major economic and social issues in the Euro-Mediterranean region. As a Senior Lecturer at SciencesPo, Dr Tsakas taught “Openness, growth and economic crisis in Mediterranean countries” at the SciencesPo University Collège of Menton. His publications for international institutions such as the World Bank, CMI, FEMISE, and the European Investment Bank include climate change, Trade Integration, Energy and the Green Deal, Social Entrepreneurship, and Women and Youth Empowerment. He holds a PhD in International Economics from Aix-Marseille University (France).

Jonathan Walters

Senior Associate, E3G

Jonathan Walters is a Senior Associate at E3G contributing to the organisation’s work on International Financial Institutions and public banks. His role focuses on ensuring that these critical public finance institutions – including Multilateral Development Banks like the World Bank – lead the global transition to a climate-safe world. His areas of expertise include energy and climate change mitigation, encompassing strategies, projects, policies, planning, institution-building, and financing.  He has very extensive experience in partnerships between development banks.  His research interests and publications include renewable energy, climate finance, energy storage, energy sector reform, and the political economy of energy. Prior to joining E3G, he worked in the World Bank (for 26 years, until early retirement at the Director level in 2014), in BP (for 2.5 years on a staff exchange), in the Government of Swaziland (as an ODI Fellow for 3 years), and since 2014 as an independent researcher and consultant.  Jonathan is also a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies.

Jonathan has worked on many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, South Asia and East Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union, including in several periods of political and economic crisis. Jonathan is a graduate of the Universities of Oxford and London. He grew up in Malta, is a UK national, and lives in Washington DC.  Mr. Walters is married with two children.