Speakers

H.E. Mukhtar Babayev is the COP29 President-Designate. Mr. Babayev was appointed to this position in January 2024, having led Azerbaijan’s delegation to five previous COPs. He has served as Azerbaijan’s Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources since 2018 where he has led national efforts to address historic ecological damage, improve Azerbaijan’s environment, and drive climate-positive growth.

In 2010, Mr. Babayev was elected to the National Assembly of Azerbaijan, where he served as a member of the Parliamentary Committee on Natural Resources, Energy and Ecology. Before entering politics, Mr. Babayev worked at the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), where in his role as Vice-President for Ecology he developed and oversaw the company’s sustainability and environmental efforts.

In his role as COP29 President-Designate, H.E. Mukhtar Babayev will develop and advance the Presidency’s Plan, bring the Parties together, ensure that Parties fulfill their previous promises, and push for greater ambition so that the world can meet the goals and ambitions of the Paris Climate Agreement.

Nigar Arpadarai is the UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP29 Azerbaijan. Ms. Arpadarai is a member of Azerbaijan’s National Assembly where she serves on the Committee on International and Interparliamentary Relations and Committee on Family, Women and Children. She has represented Azerbaijan in different international organizations. Ms. Arpadarai studied international law and holds both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from Baku State University.

In her role as UN Climate Change High-Level Champion, Ms. Arpadarai will contribute to stronger and more ambitious climate action by strengthening the engagement of non-State actors in supporting the parties to deliver on climate goals. She will also work with the private sector to ensure that they have the awareness, capacity and tools to make sustainability central to their operations and activities.

Leyla Hasanova is the Youth Climate Champion for COP29 Azerbaijan. Ms. Hasanova is the Chairperson of the Non-Aligned Movement Youth Organization, and has previously worked as Head of the Secretariat of the Non-Aligned Movement Youth Organization and Program Coordinator at the Institute for Development and Diplomacy at ADA University. She holds a Master’s degree in public administration and graduated from the United National System Staff College (UNSSC) and the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).

In her role as Youth Climate Champion, Ms. Hasanova will amplify the voices of youth-led and youth-focused organizations to ensure that they are mainstreamed into climate diplomacy and the COP process. She will also work with YOUNGO, the official children and youth constituency of the UNFCCC, to empower children and youth and promote youth participation in climate action.

From his youth in Australia to career experiences in Europe, Africa, China and across the United States, Terry has developed expertise in business, farming, education, non-profit, the environment, the arts, and government.

A United States Coast Guard-licensed ship captain, Terry has long been drawn to the undersea world, starting in the 1960s with a family-run tropical fish breeding business in Australia and continuing with studies on conch depletion in the Bahamas, manatee populations in Florida coastal waters, and mariculture in the Gulf States with Texas A&M University.

On land, Terry managed the largest sheep ranch east of the Mississippi, assisting the University of Minnesota in developing new methods of livestock disease control. Terry also managed a multi-million dollar real estate company, owned a successful recreational services business, and assisted the West African nation of Nigeria with the creation of their first solid waste recycling program.

In 1993, Terry founded the Santa Monica BayKeeper (now the Los Angeles Waterkeeper) and co-founded additional Waterkeeper programs in five California watersheds. He later served as the Executive Director of the Environment Now Foundation in Santa Monica, CA and co-founded the Frank G. Wells Environmental Law Clinicat the School of Law, University of California Los Angeles (now the Emmett Institute for Climate Policy at UCLA Law).

In the summer of 2003, Terry helped Arnold Schwarzenegger win the historic recall election and become Governor of California. He was appointed as the Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency in November 2003 and was later appointed Cabinet Secretary, the Chief Policy Advisor to the Governor. During his service in state government, Terry was the architect of many groundbreaking sustainability policies, including California’s landmark Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, the Hydrogen Highway Network, and the Million Solar Roofs initiative.

Terry left state government in late 2006 in order to help other states and world governments adopt clean energy and sustainability policies based on California’s successes.  In February 2007, he founded the non-profit organization Seventh Generation Advisors (SGA). SGA’s strategy is to create a “bottom up” approach, rather than waiting for policy from the top. This strategic approach has proven successful, and since 2007, Terry and SGA convinced many states and provinces to copy California policies and other “best practices” on clean energy and climate policy. 

In 2007 he was also named the Cullman Senior Fellow for climate policy at the New America Foundation and was appointed as an Operating Advisor to Pegasus Capital Advisors, a private equity fund that provides capital to middle market companies across a wide variety of industries specializing in resource efficiency and sustainable technologies.

In 2011 Terry was appointed as the R20 Founding Chair’s Strategic Advisor.  The R20 Regions of Climate Action, created in 2010 by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and other sub-national leaders, helps sub-national governments around the world to develop and communicate low-carbon and climate resilient economic development projects.  As the Founding Chair’s Strategic Advisor, Terry is advising the R20 on policy and helping with the design and implementation of climate resilient economic development projects.  In 2015 Terry was the primary author of  R20’s white paper Climate Finance: A Status Report and Action Plan, which was released at COP21.  The white paper was chosen by Big Path Capital as one of the “Top 10 Smartest Reports on the Intersection of Climate Change and Finance” in the current semi-annual review cycle of The SmarterMoney+ Review Winter issue. In 2016 Terry was appointed CEO of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. In addition to serving as President of 7GA, in 2022 Terry was appointed President/CEO of AltaSea in the Port of Los Angeles.

An accomplished author, Terry’s latest book, Watercolors: How JJ the Whale Saved Us, shares his remarkable true story of the rescue of JJ, a one-day-old gray whale that was found abandoned in Marina del Rey, California.  His previous book, Cracking the Carbon Code: The Keys to Sustainable Profits in the New Economy (Palgrave), shows how to find the low carbon products and services that save money, get ahead of regulations, and preserve resources for generations to come. Terry’s former book, Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction (Island Press), is a timely examination of our dependence on oil and a strategy to evolve to more sustainable energy sources. He has also authored a series of best-selling “Ultimate Guides” to pools and spas (McGraw-Hill) and several theatrical works on the life of William Shakespeare. Terry is an avid airplane and helicopter pilot and speaks German, Dutch and Spanish.

Terry was one of six finalists for the 2011 Zayed Future Energy Prize, which offers $2.2 million of awards in the category of clean, sustainable energy recognizing individuals, non-profits, and companies that are doing the most to commercialize and distribute renewable energy to replace fossil fuels and cut pollution. Terry Tamminen was named Vanity Fair’s May 2007 Environmental Hero and in TIME Magazine’s 2007 Earthday edition, he was featured in the “51 Things We Can Do” section. In 2008, The Guardian ranked Terry No. 1 in its “Top 50 People Who Can Save the Planet.” In 2009, Tamminen was named an “Eco Baron” in Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes’s book, Eco Barons: The Dreamers, Schemers, and Millionaires Who Are Saving Our Planet.

In addition to blogging regularly on our website, Terry is a regular blogger for the highly acclaimed websites CNBC.com, HuffingtonPost.com, FastCompany.com and Morther Nature Network.

Prof. Korre's research interests are in the areas of assessment of uncertainty and risk in the design and operation of engineering systems life cycle assessment and cost modelling of conventional and unconventional fossil fuel based energy production systems modelling and assessment of the fate of emissions from industrial facilities geostatistical modelling and simulation of geological and environmental systems. Anna has been appointed Distinguished Professor at the Henan Polytechnic University, Research Institute of Coal Mine Methane Geology (2012) and serves as adjunct Professor of Environmental Engineering at the International Postgraduate School, Josef Stefan Institute, Slovenia (2006 - to date).

Anna Korre Profile | Imperial College London

Michael Tun has over 20 years of experience in the textiles industry, founded the sustainable brand Eqquo, and currently invests in eco-industrial parks and renewable energy projects, promoting environmental stewardship.
 

Work

Areas of expertise: Climate change, Methane emissions, Systems ecology, Biogeochemistry, Climate change impacts, Forest ecology, Soils, C cycle

Steven ensures the scientific integrity of EDF’s positions and programs, and facilitates collaborations with researchers from a diversity of institutions and countries. He also helps identify emerging science relevant to EDF’s mission.

Steven oversees EDF's scientific efforts, including work on quantifying methane emissions from the natural gas supply chain and the use of remote sensing to measure greenhouse gas emissions. He has been actively involved in biogeochemistry, forest ecology and climate change impacts research for more than 35 years, and has published more than 100 scientific papers.

Background

Prior to joining EDF in 2008, Steven was an environmental science professor at the University of Kansas and Brown University. While at Kansas he directed the Environmental Studies Program and in 1990 started one of the first sustainability programs, serving as KU’s Environmental Ombudsman.

At Brown he was the founding director of the Global Environment Program at the Watson Institute for International Studies, which he led for more than a decade. Steven served as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and was acknowledged as one of the contributing recipients of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He was twice awarded an Environmental Merit award by the US EPA Region I for his climate change-related activities. Steven serves on many governmental and university advisory boards, and boards of trustees.

Education

• Harvard University, Bullard Fellow
• Stanford University, Post-doctorial Fellow
• Yale University, Ph.D. (Forest Ecology)
• Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies M.F.S.
• Vassar College, B.A.

Publications

• Alvarez, R., D. Zavala-Araiza, D. R. Lyon, D. T. Allen, Z. R. Barkley, A. R. Brandt, K. J. Davis, S. C. Herndon, D. J. Jacob, A. Karion, E. A. Kort, B. K. Lamb, T. Lauvaux, J. D. Maasakkers, A. J. Marchese, M. Omara, S. W. Pacala, J. Peischl, A. L. Robinson, P. B. Shepson, C. Sweeney, A. Townsend-Small, S. C. Wofsy, S. P. Hamburg. 2018 Assessment of Methane Emissions from the U.S. Oil and Gas Supply Chain. Science 361:186-188.
• Apte, J. S., K.P. Messier, S. Gani, M. Brauer, T.W. Kirchstetter, M.M. Lunden, J.D. Marshall, C.J. Portier, R.C.H. Vermeulen, and S.P. Hamburg. 2017. High-Resolution Air Pollution Mapping with Google Street View Cars: Exploiting Big Data. Environmental Science and Technology DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.7b00891
• Ocko, I.B., S. P. Hamburg, D.J. Jacob, D.W. Keith, N.O. Keohane, M. Oppenheimer, J.D. Roy-Mayhew, D. P. Schrag, and S.W. Pacala 2017 Two-valued Global Warming Potential Effectively Captures Long- and Short-term Climate Forcing. Science. 356:492-493
• Zavala-Araiza, D., D. R. Lyon, R. A. Alvarez, K. J. Davis, R. Harriss, S. C. Herndon, A. Karion, E. A. Kort, B. K. Lamb, X. Lan, A. J. Marchese, S. W. Pacala, A. L. Robinson, P. B. Shepson, C Sweeney, R. Talbot, A. Townsend-Small, T. I. Yacovitch, D. J. Zimmerle, and S. P. Hamburg. 2015. Reconciling divergent estimates of oil and gas methane emissions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences doi/10.1073/pnas.1522126112.
• National Research Council. 2015 Climate Intervention: Carbon Dioxide Removal and Reliable Sequestration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
• National Research Council. 2015 Climate Intervention: Reflecting Sunlight to Cool Earth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
• Hamburg, S.P., M.A. Vadeboncoeur, A.D. Richardson, A.S. Bailey 2013 Climate change at the ecosystem scale: A 50-year record in New Hampshire. Climatic Change 116: 457-477.
• Long, J, J Shepard, S.P. Hamburg 2012 Climate: More ways to govern Geoengineering Nature 486:323-323.
• Alvarez, R.A., S. W. Pacala, J. J. Winebrake, W. L. Chameides,, S.P. Hamburg 2012 Greater focus needed on methane leakage from natural gas infrastructure. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109:6435-6440.
• Meyer, J.D., P.C. Frumhoff, S.P. Hamburg and C. de la Rosa. 2010 Above the Din but in the fray: environmental scientists as effective advocates. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 8:298-304.
• Searchinger, T., S.P. Hamburg, J Melillo, W. Chameides, P. Havlik, D.M. Kammen, G.E. Likens, R. Lubowski, M. Obersteiner, M. Oppenheimer, G.P. Robertson, W. Schlesinger, and G.D. Tilman 2009 Fixing a Critical Climate Accounting Error Science 326:527-528.
• Leighty, W.W., S.P. Hamburg, J. Caouette. 2006 Effects of forest management on carbon sequestration in Southeastern Alaska. Ecosystems 9:1051-1065.
• Hamburg, S.P. 2000. Simple rules for measuring changes in ecosystem carbon in forestry-offset projects. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 5:25-37.
• Hamburg, S.P. and C.V. Cogbill. 1988. Historical decline of red spruce populations and climatic warming. Nature 331:428-431.

Stuart Brocklehurst is Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Business Engagement and Innovation, leading the University’s collaboration with business and our drive to deliver innovation through our research and education. In addition, as Director of Green Futures Solutions he heads the university’s drive to translate our world leading work on climate change into practical impact.

Stuart started his career in banking, holding roles with Barclays in the UK and Africa, then as Senior Vice President for Digital Commerce at Visa International CEMEA leading the adoption of new business models and technologies. Following a period as a Partner at consultancy Carbon, Stuart joined Amadeus in support of its IPO and served as Group Communications Director after the flotation. He went on to run his own business up to its sale to the Troy Group, where he remains a board advisor.

Stuart is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of the British Computer Society, a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute, a Chartered IT Professional, a Chartered Manager, a Freeman of the City of London, and holds a degree in theology from Oxford.

He has served on numerous company boards, on the synod and Bishop’s Council of the Diocese of Exeter, as a Governor of Petroc College in North Devon and as a Leadership Fellow of Exeter Business School.

He Chairs the Exeter Science Centre Advisory Board and the Military Education Committee for Devon and Cornwall and serves on the Boards of Great South West Pan Regional Partnership, SETsquared, GW4, the Centre for Resilience in Environment, Water and Waste, the South West Investment Fund’s Strategic Advisory Board and the Exeter Liveable Place Board, and on the Executive Committee of parliament’s Rural Economy Research Group and the Selection Committee for the Zayed Sustainabilty Prize.