Independent Task Force on Creative Climate Action

Global climate transition by 2050 to net zero greenhouse gas emissions will be successful only when countries in the global North and South undertake economic transformations that effectively drive down emissions and build climate resiliency. It will not occur if countries continue to pursue policies solely driven by economic ‘self-interest’. Further, climate transition achieved without advancing social and economic equity will not be sustainable.

Appointed by the Paris School of International Affairs of Sciences Po, the Task Force consists of a diverse group, drawn from academia, politics, business and civil society to think through on the ‘how to’ pragmatics, and to formulate guidance on bold climate actions based on principles of equity and mutual interest. The report of the Task Force is expected to highlight time-bound measures and next steps, for consideration at the Bali Summit of G-20 leaders in late 2022.

Task Force Members

Howard DAVIES (UK)

Davies is Chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland. He was the Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science (2003-2011), and since 2011, is a professor at PSIA. He has been chairman of the British Government’s Airport Policy Review, of UK’s Financial Services Authority, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, independent Director of Morgan Stanley Inc. and Non-Executive Director of Prudential plc. Earlier he worked in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Treasury, and McKinsey and Co. He is a member of the Regulatory and Compliance Advisory Council of Millennium Management LLC. In 2012, he was appointed Chairman of the International Advisory Council of the China Securities Regulatory Commission. Davies was a Trustee of the Tate Gallery, member of the governing body of the Royal Academy of Music, and is Chairman of the London Library Trustees. He has published five books on the financial markets and regularly writes for The Financial Times, Times Higher Education, Prospect, and The Literary Review.

Glenn DENNING (Australia)

Denning joined the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University in 2009 as founding Director of the Master of Public Administration in Development Practice. From 2011 to 2014, Denning served as Director of the Earth Institute’s Center on Globalization and Sustainable Development. He continues to serve on the Earth Institute faculty as Chair of the Practice Committee. Over the past 40 years, Denning has advised governments and international organizations on agriculture and food policy in more than 50 countries. He has also served on the UN Millennium Project Hunger Task Force and the Senior Steering Group of the UN High Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis. In 2000, Denning was honored by the Government of Cambodia as Commander of the Royal Order of Sahametrei for his role in establishing the Cambodian Agricultural Research and Development Institute and his contributions to increasing national rice production.

Susanna HECHT (United States)

Hecht’s research focuses largely on land use change in the Latin American tropics. Supported by research agencies and foundations including US National Science Foundation, NASA, MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation and Guggenheim Foundation, amongst others, her research integrates the humanities, including the history of ideas, social and environmental history, and the social sciences of development into the dynamics and sciences of tropical and planetary change. She has worked with the governments of Brazil, El Salvador, Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia and for European and US development agencies, World Bank and InterAmerican Development Bank, and many non-government organizations. She is a professor at the School of Public Affairs/Urban Planning and at the Graduate Institute, Geneva. Her book, Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha, won the Eleanor Melville Award for best book in Latin American environmental history from the American Historical Association, and the Carl O. Sauer Award.

Frannie LEAUTIER (Tanzania)

Léautier is a partner and CEO of SouthBridge Investment, Kigali. She leads the investment activities of the firm. She previously worked in asset management, development finance, and risk management. Léautier graduated from the Massachusetts Institute for Technology with a Master of Science in Transportation and a PhD in Infrastructure Systems. She went on to work at the World Bank Group, where during her 15-year career she held senior financial positions. She served as Vice-President for nearly seven years at the WBG and won several awards for her outstanding contributions.  She held various roles at the Trade and Development Bank Group, including vice chair of the board, special advisor to the president, before becoming the group’s first chief operating officer. She has authored several books and has lectured at Sciences Po, MIT, Harvard, and University of Tokyo.

Enrico LETTA (Italy)

Letta is the Secretary of the Italian Democratic Party. Until recently, he was Dean of the Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA) at Sciences Po in Paris. Letta was the Prime Minister of Italy from April 2013 to February 2014. Prior to that he served as Minister for EU Affairs (1998-1999), Minister for Industry, Commerce and Crafts (January-April 2000), Minister for Industry, Commerce and Crafts and Foreign Trade (2000-2001) and Undersecretary of State to the Prime Minister of the government led by Romano Prodi (2006 to 2008). Between 2001 and 2015 he was Member of the Italian Parliament, excluding between 2004 and 2006 when he was Member of the European Parliament. In 2016, he received the Commander of the Legion of Honor of France.

Carlos LOPES (Guinea Bissau)

Lopes is an honorary professor at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance of the University of Cape Town, and a visiting fellow at the Oxford Martin School of the University of Oxford. In 2018 he was appointed High Representative of the Commission of the African Union and is a member of the African Union Reform Team led by President Paul Kagame. He was executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa from September 2012 to October 2016. Lopes took a PhD in history from the Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris, and has a research master’s degree from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. He has honorary doctorates from Hawassa University in Ethiopia and from the Universidade Cândido Mendes in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Zhi LÜ (China)

Lü is a conservation biologist and a panda expert. She is a professor at Peking University and the executive director of university’s Center for Nature and Society. Lü is the founder of the Shanshui Conservation Center, dedicated to preserving the Three Rivers Headwater Region in Yushu, Qinghai. Previously she worked at WWF China and as the head of Conservation International, China. Lü’s conservation work focuses on several large endangered species, including the giant panda, snow leopard, Przewalski’s gazelle and Tibetan brown bear. The center at Shanshui helps develop community based, grassroots solutions to conservation in western China. Lü hopes to see a “new economic system that recognises and pays for the value of nature.” She has worked with the Chinese government and businesses to help develop more environmentally-friendly legislation and practices. Lü has written and co-authored several books about science. Her book, Giant Pandas in the Wild (2002), was celebrated as “a work of art” by Library Journal.

Stefano MANSERVISI (Italy)

Manservisi is special advisor to Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni, chair of the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund, and senior advisor at the European Institute of Peace. He has served the European Union for more than 35 years. Manservisi was Director-General for International Cooperation and Development (DEVCO) at the European Commission. Prior to that, he was the Head of the Private Office of Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Commission Vice-President. He was the head of the Delegation of the European Union to Turkey. Before that, he held different positions at the Commission, including as Director-General for Migration and Home Affairs, and DG for Development and Relations with African, Caribbean, and Pacific States. He also headed the private offices of the Commission’s President Romano Prodi and Commissioner Mario Monti. He studied law at the Universities of Bologna and Paris-Sorbonne. Manservisi lectures at PSIA at Sciences-Po and at the EUI.

José Antonio MEADE (Mexico)

Meade is a professor at ITAM, Mexico City, commissioner of the Global Commission on Adaptation, a non-executive director of ALFA General Board, and independent non-executive director of the HSBC Board of Directors. Between 2011 and 2017 he held cabinet-level positions in the federal government of Mexico, including acting as Secretary of Finance and Public Credit, Secretary of Social Development, Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Secretary of Energy. Prior to his appointment to the Cabinet, he served as Undersecretary and as Chief of Staff in the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit. Meade served as the Director General of Banking and Savings at the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit. As the chief executive officer of the National Bank for Rural Credit, he led financial restructuring and transition to a new institution, Financiera Rural. He studied economics and law from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, before receiving a PhD in Economics from Yale University.

Rohini NILEKANI (India)

Nilekani is an Indian philanthropist. She is the Founder-Chairperson of Arghyam, a foundation for sustainable water and sanitation initiatives across India. From 2004 to 2014 she was Founder-Chairperson and chief funder of Pratham Books, a non-profit children’s publisher that reaches millions of children. She is Co-founder and Director of EkStep, a non-profit education platform.  She is on the Board of ATREE, an environmental think tank, and serves on the Eminent Persons Advisory Group of the Competition Commission of India. A former journalist, she writes for several Indian publications. Her non-fiction book, ‘Uncommon Ground’, is based on her eponymous TV show. She has written several books for young children, including the popular “Annual Haircut Day”. In 2017, she was inducted as Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Together with her husband, Nilekani signed the Giving Pledge, which commits half their wealth to philanthropic causes.

Cherie NURSALIM (Indonesia)

Nursalim is an Indonesian businesswoman and philanthropist. She is a vice chairperson at the GITI Group and special advisor to the government of the Republic of Indonesia. She is vice chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce and is a board member of Publicis Groupe, Blended Finance Taskforce, Partnering for Green Growth, University of Indonesia Research Center for Climate Change and Singapore Science Center, World Green Building Council, amongst others. She serves on the International and Asia Advisory Boards for Columbia University and MIT Sloan School of Management respectively. She chairs the Southeast Asia Chapter of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and Tsinghua University Southeast Asia Centre in Bali, where she is developing Kura Kura Bali to implement the Tri Hita Karana philosophy of happiness. Nursalim is a founding trustee of the United in Diversity Forum. She is a graduate in Engineering and Economics from St Hilda’s College, Oxford, and has a MBA from Columbia Business School.

John G. ROBINSON (United States)

Robinson is IUCN Councilor for North America and the Caribbean and is the Joan L. Tweedy Chair in Conservation Strategy at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).  Robinson oversaw the programs of the WCS in North America, Latin America and Caribbean, Asia, Africa and the Marine realm from 1990 until the end of 2019. He has been a member of the board of the Christensen Fund, Foundations of Success, Tropical Forest Foundation, and World Parks Endowment. He served on the Board of Governors of the Society for Conservation Biology and as its President. In recognition of his contributions to conservation, Robinson was inducted into the Royal Order of the Golden Ark by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands in 2003.  In 2016, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Zoological Society of London. He has a Ph.D. in Zoology. In over 200 books, book chapters and journal publications, he has written extensively on conservation research, practice and policy.

Naresh C. SINGH (Guyana)

Singh is a professor and Director of the Centre for Complexity Economics and Applied Spirituality for Public Policy, Jindal School of Government and Public Policy at Jindal Global University, Sonipat. He has over three decades of experience, across 60 countries, as an international development practitioner, scholar and policy adviser to governments and international institutions. He serves as special adviser on sustainability at the Toronto Centre, and as senior VP for Global Partnerships at Global Development Solutions Canada. Singh was the executive director of the UN Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor co-chaired by Madeleine Albright and Hernando de Soto. He has held senior positions in the Federal Government of Canada, United Nations Development Program, International Institute for Sustainable Development and Caribbean Environmental Health Institute. He has lectured at several universities including Boston University, Harvard, McGill and Waterloo and universities of Guyana and the West Indies.

Shiv SOMESHWAR (India)

Task Force Convenor – Someshwar is the founder chairholder of the European Chair for Sustainable Development and Climate Transition at Sciences Po, Paris. He is a visiting professor at Sciences Po and Columbia University, New York. Someshwar leads multidisciplinary efforts on building resilience to climate risks, and advises governments and multilateral institutions on implementing sustainable development action priorities in pursuit of Agenda 2030. He received a Ph.D. in urban planning from the University of California, Los Angeles, and he was a Bell-MacArthur fellow at Harvard University. He has two masters’ degrees, on housing and environmental planning, and is also trained as a professional architect. Someshwar has previously worked at the Earth Institute, Columbia University, the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, and the World Bank in Washington D.C.

Sébastien TREYER (France)

Treyer is the executive director of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations – IDDRI, since 2019, having joined in 2010 as the Director of Programmes. Prof. Treyer is a faculty at Sciences Po, Paris and chairman of the Scientific and Technical Committee of the French Global Environment Facility, as well as a member of the Lead Faculty of the Earth System Governance Network. A graduate from École Polytechnique, chief engineer of the Corps of Bridges, Water and Forests, and PhD in environmental management, Treyer was in charge of foresight studies at the French Ministry of the Environment, and played an active role in leading the interface between science and policy and scientific programming at the European Commission, the French National Research Agency, and various territorial actors.

For additional information on the Task Force contact

Shiv Someshwar – Convenor of the Task Force – shivsharan.someshwar@sciencespo.fr 

Alejandra Guraieb – Secretary to the Task Force – alejandra.guraiebelizalde@sciencespo.fr