International Climate Symposium

Science-Based Choices for Climate Action: Insights from the IPCC 6th Assessment Report

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Ko Barrett, Vice-Chair of the IPCC, is the Senior Advisor for Climate at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) where she provides strategic advice and scientific leadership for climate research, applications, and services to coordinate and integrate activities across NOAA’s portfolio of climate-related programs. In 2015, Ko Barrett was one of the first women elected to serve as a vice chair of the IPCC. For over 15 years, she has represented the United States on delegations charged with negotiating and adopting scientific assessments undertaken by the IPCC. She has also served for over a decade as a lead negotiator for the United States on the United Nations treaty on climate change. Ko Barrett is widely recognized as an expert on climate policy, particularly on issues related to climate impacts and strategies to help society adapt to a changing world.

Gabriel Blanco is a Full-time Professor at Universidad Nacional del Centro en Argentina. He has been part as a coordinating lead author of the Working Group III of the IPCC in the evaluation assessment cycles 5 and 6. Blanco is a senior consultant for national and international institutions on energy and climate related issues. He was part of the Argentina's negotiation team in the UNFCCC and former chair of the Technical Executive Committee. During 2020, Blanco was appointed as National Director of Climate Change at the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development in Argentina.

Gillian Bowser, Associate Professor in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, Colorado State University, focuses on ecological indicators of climate change. She places special emphasis on sustainability, citizen-scientist engagement, and encouraging more students from underrepresented backgrounds to study science. Bowser has worked as a wildlife biologist and ecologist for the U.S. National Park Service in Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Joshua Tree and Wrangell St. Elias, and was an AAAS Science and Diplomacy Fellow in 2011. She serves on the board for the Rocky Mountain Sustainability and Science Network, and participated in the U.N. Framework on Climate Change Convention and U.N. Global Environmental Outlook.

Tim Carter, President of Second Nature, is founding Director of Butler University’s Center for Urban Ecology (CUE). Through partnerships Carter developed across the city of Indianapolis, as well as through his work with staff, faculty, students, and leadership at the university, the Center became not only a successful place for the study of ecology but also a participant in increasing the sustainability of the city and campus. The CUE also led efforts to develop Butler’s climate strategy including signing the Carbon Commitment, developing Butler’s Climate Action Plan, and hiring Butler’s first sustainability officer.

Rachel Cleetus is the policy director with the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. She leads the program’s efforts in designing effective and equitable policies to address climate change, and advocating for their implementation. Dr. Cleetus is an expert in policies to promote clean energy and drive deep cuts in heat-trapping emissions from the power sector, including carbon pricing and complementary sector-based policies. She also does research on the risks and costs of climate impacts and is an expert on policies to promote climate resilience. She has co-authored numerous reports and articles including the recent UCS reports Underwater: Rising Seas, Chronic Floods, and the Implications for US Coastal Real Estate; Surviving and Thriving in the Face of Rising Seas Building Resilience for Communities on the Front Lines of Climate Change; and The US Power Sector in a Net Zero World: Analyzing pathways for deep carbon reductions.

Armond Cohen is co-founder and President of Clean Air Task Force, which he has led since its formation in 1996. In addition to leading CATF, Armond is directly involved in CATF research and advocacy on the topic of requirements to deeply decarbonize global energy systems. Prior to his work with CATF, Armond founded and led the Conservation Law Foundation’s Energy Project starting in 1983, focusing on energy efficiency, utility resource planning, and electric industry structure. Armond has published numerous articles on climate change, energy system transformation, and air pollution; he speaks, writes, and testifies frequently on these topics. He is a member of the Keystone Center Energy Board and board member of the Nuclear Innovation Alliance. Armond is an honors graduate of Harvard Law School and Brown University. He was awarded the Sam Rose and Julie Walters Prize for Global Environmental Activism at Dickinson College in 2020.

Fatima Denton, Director of the United Nations University Institute for Natural Resources in Africa and IPCC Working Group 3 author, had worked with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Ethiopia since 2012. Her roles included Director of the Natural Resource Management Division and Coordinator of the African Climate Policy Centre. Before that Dr Denton was a Program Leader with the Canada-based International Development Research Centre (IDRC). She also worked as an energy scientist with the United Nations Environment Program Risoe Centre (Denmark) and as an energy program manager with Enda Tiers Monde (Senegal). Dr Denton is a lead author for the IPCC special report on climate change and land, a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (Working Group III) and was a Lead Author for the Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports (Working Group II) and for the IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy and Climate Change Mitigation.

Margaret Douglas, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Dickinson College, studies the ecology of agricultural systems with an emphasis on the roles of insects and other invertebrates as friend and foe to food production. Her research employs eclectic methods ranging from field experiments to meta-analysis and is oriented to practical application through dialogue with farmers, beekeepers, conservation organizations, and policy makers. Her interests include integrated pest management, biological control, soil conservation, ecotoxicology (esp. neonicotinoid insecticides), and socio-ecological dynamics of pesticide use.

Andreas Fischlin, Professor Emeritus at ETH Zurich and IPCC Vice-Chair, is head of the Terrestrial Systems Ecology Group since its formation in November 1988. For his work on "Teaching Means in the Field of Electrical Engineering" he won the Denzler award 1989 of the Swiss Electrotechnical Association (SEV/ASE). Andreas Fischlin was one of the leading designers of the new curriculum in environmental sciences and helped to find the new Department of Environmental Systems Science (D-USYS). He has been Convening Lead Author of the chapter "Climate change impacts on forests" of "Climate Change 1995", the Second Assessment Report prepared for IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and is has recently served as senior Coordinating Lead Author of the chapter "Ecosystems, their properties, goods, and services" of the Assessment Report Four "Climate Change 2007" of the IPCC. The latter work made him a co- recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize 2007.

Toshihiro Hasegawa, National Agricultural and Food Research Organization and IPCC Working Group 2 author, is a crop physiologist specialized in crop environmental response. His current research mainly focuses on rice yield and quality under global change, using the FACE experimental facilities and crop modelling. He is a Coordinating Lead Author of the IPCC 6th assessment report and is leader of the AgMIP (Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project) rice team.

Karl Hausker, Senior Fellow in WRI’s Climate Program, leads analysis and modeling of deep decarbonization climate mitigation, electricity market design, and the social cost of carbon. He testifies before Congress, lectures widely on deep decarbonization, and led the Risky Business study of clean energy scenarios for the U.S. He has worked for three decades in the fields of climate change, energy, and environment in a career that has spanned legislative and executive branches, research institutions, NGOs, and consulting. Much of his work has focused on the electricity and transportation sectors, and on low carbon, climate resilient development strategies. His experience includes serving President Clinton as Deputy Assistant Administrator in EPA’s Policy Office and serving as the Chief Economist for the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

John E. Jones, President of Dickinson College, is the 30th President at Dickinson College and a former United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Jones went on to become chief judge in 2020. He presided over a number of high-profile cases, including the landmark case of Kitzmiller v. Dover School District. He also resolved the matter of Whitewood v. Wolf by striking down as unconstitutional Pennsylvania’s ban on same-sex marriage. Additionally, Jones co-chaired Pennsylvania Governor-elect Tom Ridge’s transition team and served as chair of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. In 2006, Time magazine named him as one of its Time 100 most influential people in the world. He was the recipient of the first John Marshall Judicial Independence Award. He also received the Geological Society of America’s President’s Medal and was inducted into the George Washington Spirit Society. He also served as chair of Dickinson’s Board of Trustees.

Sivan Kartha, Senior Scientist at SEI-US and IPCC Working Group 3 author, is co-leader of SEI’s Gender Equality and Social Equity Programme. His research and publications have dealt with policy strategies for addressing climate change, focusing on equity and effectiveness in the design of an international climate regime. He has worked on mitigation scenarios, market mechanisms for climate actions, and the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of biomass energy and is co-director of the Climate Equity Reference Project. His work has enabled him to advise and collaborate with diverse organizations, including the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), various UN and World Bank programmes, numerous government policy-making bodies and agencies, foundations and civil society organizations throughout the developing and industrialized world. 

Rachel Bezner Kerr, Professor of Department of Global Development at Cornell University and IPCC Working Group 2 author, has published over 70 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters and books, in scientific journals such as Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, Agriculture and Human Values, Social Science and Medicine, Public Health Nutrition, Global Environmental Change, Journal of Peasant Studies and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  She coauthored a report for the United Nations High Level Panel of Experts which examined the potential for agroecology to address food security and nutrition. She currently serves as a Coordinating Lead Author for the chapter on climate change impacts and adaptation of food systems for the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

Neil Leary, Director of the Center for Sustainability Education and Associate Provost at Dickinson College, has participated in climate change research for 30 years. He has been an author and review editor for science assessment reports of the IPCC, was a leader of the IPCC’s 2001 report on climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, and led international studies of climate change vulnerability and adaptation in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America as program director at START International. At Dickinson, Leary leads efforts to integrate sustainability across the curriculum that have earned Dickinson recognition as a national leader in education for sustainability. He and his students have done research with community partners that contributed to adoption of climate action plans by Carlisle Borough and Cumberland County in Pennsylvania.

Hoesung Lee, Chair of the IPCC, is Endowed Chair Professor at Korea University Graduate School of Energy and Environment, Seoul, Korea, a member of the Board of Directors of the Korean Academy of Environmental Sciences, and chair of the Asian Development Bank President’s Advisory Board on Climate Change and Sustainable Development. Lee has served on many national and international committees addressing climate change and energy. He was Co-Chair of the IPCC Working Group III for the Second Assessment which provided a scientific basis for the UNFCCC’s Kyoto Protocol, served as Vice-Chair of IPCC 2008-2015, and has been a lead author and review editor for various IPCC assessments. His research encompasses the economics of climate change, energy and sustainable development. He was named to the 2019 TIME 100 Most Influential People in the world.

Timon McPhearson, Professor of Urban Ecology & Director of the Urban Systems Lab at The New School and IPCC Working Group 2 author, is a Senior Research Fellow at The Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University, and a Research Affiliate of the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics at The Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences. In 2017 he was awarded the Distinguished University Teaching Award at The New School. In 2019 he was awarded both the Sustainability Science Award and the Innovation in Sustainability Science Award by the Ecological Society of America. In 2020 he was named an NYC Climate Hero by the NYC DOT and Human Impacts Institute and appointed by the NYC Mayor to the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC).  He is a founding editor of Nature npj Urban Sustainability.

Linda Mearns, Senior Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and IPCC Working Group 1 author, is the Director of the Weather and Climate Impacts Assessment Science Program (WCIASP) and Head of the Regional Integrated Sciences Collective (RISC) within the Institute for Mathematics Applied to Geosciences (IMAGe). She was an author of the 1995, 2001, 2007, 2014, and 2022 IPCC Climate Change Assessments. She leads the multi-agency supported North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP). She has been a member of the National Research Council Climate Research Committee (CRC), the NAS Panel on Adaptation of the America’s Climate Choices Program, and the NAS Human Dimensions of Global Change (HDGC) Committee and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences Panel on Advancing Climate Modeling. 

Dr Aditi Mukherji is a Principal Researcher at the International Water Management Institute. Earlier, she led the Water and Air Theme at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Nepal. Aditi was a Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) of the Water Chapter in the Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published in February 2022, and is a member, Core Writing Team of  the IPCC’s AR6 Synthesis Report which synthesizes all six reports of the AR6 cycle. Her areas of specialization are groundwater governance, energy-irrigation nexus, climate change adaptation and community management of water resources.  She has worked in South Asia including the Hindu Kush Himalayan region, Nile basin and in Central Asia. Aditi is a human geographer with a PhD from Cambridge University, United Kingdom.

Emily Pawley, Associate Professor of History and Walter E. Beach '56 Chair in Sustainability Studies at Dickinson College, has expertise in environmental history, history of capitalism, history of the body, landscape, history of food and food production, history of science.

Anand Patwardhan is Professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, College Park. He was earlier a Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay. Anand has a BTech (Electrical Engineering) from IIT-Bombay and a MS (Civil Engineering) and PhD (Engineering and Public Policy), both from Carnegie Mellon University. Anand’s research focuses on mitigation and adaptation responses to climate change, and the assessment of vulnerability and adaptation, as well as broader issues of science, technology and innovation policy. He has been a coordinating lead author for the IPCC, and a member of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel of the Global Environmental Facility. He currently serves as co-chair of the Science Committee of the World Adaptation Science Program (WASP), and co-chair of the Adaptation Research Alliance (ARA).

Benjamin Preston is a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation and director of Community Health and Environmental Policy, a program of RAND Social and Economic Well-Being. He is also a professor at Pardee RAND Graduate School. He is temporarily on leave from RAND to serve as the assistant director for Climate Services and Adaptation in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under the terms of the Intergovernmental Personnel Act Mobility Program. Preston's recent research efforts include understanding the role of knowledge in climate risk management, analysis of disaster recovery options and their implementation in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, scenario analysis for a low-carbon future, and the implications of COVID-19 for the delivery of infrastructure services. He is a lead author for the IPCC 6th Assessment Report and has contributed to the US National Climate Assessment.

Debra Roberts, Head of Sustainable City and Resilient City Initiatives Unit, eThekwini Municipality, South Africa, and IPCC Working Group II Co-Chair, was elected Co-Chair of Working Group II in 2015. Under her co-leadership Working Group II published the IPCC Special Report on Ocean and the Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC) in 2019 and contributed to the Special Reports on “Climate Change and Land” and “Global warming of 1.5°C in 2018. She was a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the IPCC co-sponsored International Conference on Climate Change and Cities in 2018 and IPCC-IPBES co-sponsored workshop on “Biodiversity and Climate Change” in 2020. Prof Roberts co-led the Scientific Steering Committees of the IPCC-UNHabitat-GCom co-sponsored Innovate for Cities Conference and the IPCC-ICOMOS- UNESCO international co-sponsored meeting on Culture, Heritage and Climate Change, both held in 2021. In 2019 she was included in a list of the World’s 100 Most Influential People in Climate Policy.

Debra Rowe, President of the U.S. Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development, is co-founder of the Higher Education Associations Sustainability Consortium; Founder and Facilitator of the Disciplinary Associations’ Network for Sustainability, Senior Fellow at Second Nature and Senior Advisor to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. Debra has been professor of energy management and renewable energy for over 30 years at Oakland Community College. She helps schools create energy management, renewable energies and sustainability programs with U.S. National Science Foundation support. Dr. Rowe chairs the Technical Advisory Group and the Green Jobs Policy Community of Action for the American Association of Community Colleges. She helps higher education and K-12 associations integrate sustainability into mission, curricula, purchasing, facilities, and other areas.

Alexander Ruane, Research Physical Scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and IPCC Working Group 1 author, is a co-Director of the GISS Climate Impacts Group, and an adjunct Associate Research Scientist at the Columbia University Center for Climate Systems Research in New York City. Dr. Ruane serves as the Research Coordinator and Climate Team Leader for the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project and coordinating Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report (IPCC AR6), Working Group 1 Chapter 12: 'Climate information for regional impact and for risk assessment'. He is also a member of the Core Writing Team for the IPCC Synthesis Report that combines findings across all Working Groups and Special Reports of the AR6 Cycle. Dr. Ruane is also the founder and Co-Chair of the Vulnerability, Impacts, Adaptation, and Climate Services (VIACS) Advisory Board for the Sixth Phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). He also serves on the Expert Committee for the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) Global Risk Assessment Framework (GRAF).

Roberto Schaeffer, Full Professor of Energy Economics at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with some 150 master's and doctoral theses supervised so far. He holds a PhD in Energy Management and Policy from the University of Pennsylvania, where he also acted as a Visiting Professor and Lecturer on different occasions. He works in the fields of Energy and of Integrated Assessment Modelling for climate change mitigation. Dr. Schaeffer collaborates with the IPCC since 1998. He is Associate-editor of Energy-The International Journal since 1999. Dr. Schaeffer is a full member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences; co-recipient, together with others scientists of the IPCC, of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007; recipient of the IAMC Award for Extraordinary Contribution to the Field of IAM in 2020; and recipient of the Academic Award of the Brazilian Centre for International Relations (CEBRI) in 2022.

Dr Lisa Schipper is (as of 1.1.2023) Professor of Development Geography at the University of Bonn, Germany, and focuses on adaptation to climate change in the Global South. She was until recently at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. Lisa's research looks at gender, religion and culture to understand what drives vulnerability. She was Co-ordinating Lead Author of Chapter 18 of the Working Group 2 contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (‘Climate Resilient Development Pathways’) that was published in February 2022. She is co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Climate and Development (Taylor and Francis). Lisa was also an author of the 2021 UNEP Adaptation Gap Report, and is currently a member the Science Committee for the 2023 Adaptation Futures Conference.

Karen Seto is the Frederick C. Hixon Professor of Geography and Urbanization Science at Yale University’s School of the Environment. An urban and land change scientist, she is one of the world's leading experts on contemporary urbanization and global environmental change, including the effects of urbanization on food systems, biodiversity, croplands, energy use and GHG emissions.  She serves on numerous national and international scientific bodies. She currently co-chairs the U.S. National Academies Climate Security Roundtable and the U.S. National Academies Subcommittee on U.S.-China Scientific Engagement. She was a Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC 6th (2022) and 5th (2014) Assessment Reports, where she co-led the Working Group III chapter on urban mitigation of climate change. She is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, and a Fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

Kristin Strock, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Dickinson College, uses modern aquatic ecology and fossil records contained in lake sediments, to explore issues that are critical to effectively managing freshwater resources. Her interests include freshwater and ecosystem ecology and paleoecology, ecosystem response to changes in climate and atmospheric deposition, watershed biogeochemistry, algal ecology, food-web interactions, and freshwater resource management. Her most recent work has taken her to Iceland where she's studying carbon cycling in the ice, rivers, and lakes of this polar environment with the support of National Geographic.

Sylvester Turner, Mayor of Houston and Chair of Climate Mayors Network, serves as the Executive Officer of the City. As the City's chief administrator and official representative, the mayor is responsible for the general management of the city and for seeing that all laws and ordinances are enforced. Administrative duties include the appointments, with Council approval, of department heads and people serving on advisory boards. As Executive Officer, the Mayor administers oaths and signs all motions, resolutions and ordinances passed by the City Council. The mayor also serves a legislative function, presiding over the City Council with voting privileges. The mayor is responsible for advising the Council of the City's financial condition and presents to Council an annual budget for approval.

Anthony Underwood, Associate Professor of Economics at Dickinson College, has published in several academic journals, including the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Energy Policy, Ecological Economics, The Journal of Economic Education, and Review of Political Economy. Professor Underwood regularly teaches environmental economics, econometrics, and microeconomics. In his advanced econometrics course, students practice the importance of reproducible and transparent methods in research thorough completion of their own empirical research project. He also teaches courses in population and urban economics and is a contributing faculty member in the Data Analytics department.