Enabling a Just Transition

In this decisive decade for climate action, the UAE will seek to bring the world together at COP28 to agree bold and ambitious solutions to this unprecedented global challenge. With a proven track record of building consensus in international negotiations ranging from climate change to energy to aviation, Ambassador Majid Al-Suwaidi brings invaluable diplomatic expertise to the UAE COP Presidency. As the UAE’s Lead Negotiator on Climate Change, Energy and Sustainability, Ambassador Al-Suwaidi played a key role in the negotiation and adoption of the landmark Paris Agreement in 2015, as well as in the design and adoption of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. In his most recent role, Ambassador Al-Suwaidi served as the UAE Ambassador to Spain, Andorra, and Vatican City. In a previous role as Consul General, he was responsible for opening the UAE’s first ever consulate in New York, where he also led the UAE Mission to the United Nations. As well as being a firm believer in the power of multilateralism, Ambassador Al-Suwaidi also brings considerable insight into the scale and practical complexity involved in the global transition to clean energy, having worked for almost a decade in the international energy sector. Ambassador Al-Suwaidi has an undergraduate degree in Geology from Brunel University (United Kingdom), as well as a graduate degree in Earth Sciences from Simon Fraser University (Canada). In 2023, he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic by the Government of Spain in recognition of extraordinary services in the promotion of international relations, following his three year stint as UAE Ambassador to Spain.

Hon. Seve Paeniu started his career as Assistant Planning Officer with Tuvalu's Ministry of Finance in 1988 and became the Ministry's Director of Planning in 1989. His long political career includes serving as Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Sports and in the Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Industries. Hon. Paeniu also served as Tuvaluan High Commissioner to Fiji in 2006. His experience includes also working in the Pacific with regional and international organizations such as SPREP, PIFS, UNDP and UNESCAP. Before being appointed as the Minister of Finance in 2019, he served as the Head of Secretariat of the Oceania Customs Organisation (OCO) from 2015 to 2019.

Mark Malloch-Brown is president of the Open Society Foundations, the world’s largest private funder of independent groups working for justice, democratic governance, and human rights. He has worked to advance human rights, justice, and development for more than four decades in a variety of roles: with the United Nations, the World Bank, and as a British government minister, as well as with a range of civil society groups and business. At the United Nations, Malloch-Brown spearheaded the global promotion of the UN Millennium Development Goals as head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) from 1999 to 2005, under the then UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan. At the UNDP, and previously as head of external affairs at the World Bank, Malloch-Brown led reform efforts that were widely seen as increasing the impact of both organizations. He later served as Kofi Annan’s chief of staff, and then as UN Deputy Secretary General, before joining the British government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, as minister responsible for Africa and Asia from 2007 to 2009. Malloch-Brown rejoined Open Society’s Global Board in 2009, reflecting a close friendship with George Soros that developed in the early 1990s when he was working as a political consultant in Latin America and later over relief efforts in Bosnia. In 1995, Soros backed Malloch-Brown and others’ idea of launching the International Crisis Group, an NGO focused on preventing and averting violent conflict, in response to the horrors seen in Rwanda, Somalia, and the former Yugoslavia. More recently, he chaired Best for Britain, a group that makes the case for Britain’s engagement with the European Union, and has among others led the boards of the Royal Africa Society, the UN Foundation, and the Business Commission for Sustainable Development. Malloch-Brown was knighted for his contribution to international affairs and is currently on leave from the British House of Lords. Malloch-Brown is a Distinguished Practitioner at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government, an adjunct fellow at Chatham House’s Queen Elizabeth Program, and has been a visiting distinguished fellow at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization.

Allison Carlson is the Executive Vice President of FP Analytics & Events at Foreign Policy. She oversees FPA’s cross-cutting research at the intersection of policy, technology, and global markets as well as Foreign Policy’s global dialogues and convenings. Prior to these roles, Carlson led FP Analytics’ energy and technology team for more than a decade, evaluating evolving climate and emissions policies and identifying opportunities for advanced technology deployment internationally. Before joining FP, she led the Latin America program for a boutique consulting firm assisting European companies on investing in emerging markets’ energy and financial sectors. Carlson has presented her work at a variety of international conferences and before the U.S. Senate. She is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, where she received a master’s degree in international relations and international economics.

Ambroise Fayolle was appointed Vice-President of the European Investment Bank in February 2015. He is currently responsible for climate action and environment, development policy, the European Guarantee Fund, and is Board member of the European Investment Fund. He also oversees the activities of the Bank in France, Germany and many countries in Africa and of the Pacific Ocean. A graduate of the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA), he spent most of his career in various positions at the French Treasury Department and in the IMF and the World Bank, including as a Board member of the two institutions for 8 years.

Born in Thiaroye Gare, Senegal on October 25th 1972, he is married and father of 3. From primary School to Baccalaureate, Amadou studied at the primary school Khali Madiakhate Kala of Guédiawaye (formerly known as Ecole 25), before joining Junior high school CES Pikine. Prior to joining the Government of Senegal as Minister in charge of Economy, Planning and International Cooperation in April 2019, Amadou was the Vice President of the African Development Bank’s Power, Energy, Green Growth and Climate Change Complex, since November 2016, and has 20 years of experience in areas such as structured finance, sovereign wealth funds management, investment banking, infrastructure and the development of integrated energy solutions. Amadou held various Investment banking and Investment advisory positions in New York, London, Dubai and Lagos. He was Director of Millennium Finance Corporation for Africa, where he was responsible for project finance operations in sectors such as energy, mining, ICT and banking in Africa and Middle East. He was also Managing Director of UBA Capital, which is present in 20 African countries, and then founder and CEO of Afribridge Capital, an investment firm specializing in advisory services in Africa where he provided advice in the areas of energy, electricity, information, communications and technology. In 2012, after 15 years of international investment banking and advisory work, Amadou returned to Senegal to serve his country. His roles in Senegal included: Special Advisor of HE President Macky Sall, Chairman of Aéroport International Blaise Diagne (Senegal’s new international airport) and Founder and CEO of Senegal’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, as part of which he launched major infrastructure investment initiatives, including renewable energy and energy projects. Amadou has undergraduate degrees in applied mathematics and economy, an MSc in Finance, from Sorbonne University in Paris, which included participation as an exchange student in New York University’s MSc in Financial Mathematics program. He was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2012.

Ingrid-Gabriela Hoven is Managing Director of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH since October 2020. Ms. Hoven is a development economist with more than 30 years of international experience focusing strongly on sustainability and climate issues. From 2010 to 2014, she served as World Bank Group Executive Director representing Germany. Prior to this assignment and thereafter, she held various high-level positions in the BMZ (German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development). During this time, Ms. Hoven spearheaded new global actions such as the NDC Partnership and AFR100, as well as initiatives in the field of climate risk insurance and finance. She is a member of, amongst others, the Supervisory Board of the German Energy Agency (dena), GEAPP's Global Leadership Council (GLC), ITU's Partner2Connect Global Advisory Board, the Agora Verkehrswende Council and the Insurance Development Forum (IDF) Steering Committee. Ms. Hoven studied economics and political science at Justus-Liebig University Giessen and Université Paris IX/Dauphine. She is alumna of the postgraduate program of the German Development Institute (now IDOS).

Angela Churie Kallhauge is the Executive Vice President, Impact at Environmental Defense Fund. Her work is focused on using inclusive processes and economic approaches to achieve ambitious climate solutions that deliver equitable benefits to people around the world. Angela Churie Kallhauge joined EDF from the World Bank where she served as the head of the Secretariat of the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC) for five years. Before that she was at the Swedish Energy Agency where she worked for 14 years on climate change, energy and development issues. During her time at the Swedish Energy Agency, she worked on carbon market development issues, including portfolio development and capacity building in developing countries. She also served as the EU lead negotiator on adaptation and resilience issues under the UNFCCC for close to a decade and represented Sweden in the Adaptation Fund Board where she led the work on accreditation for direct access. Angela also draws experience from the International Renewable Energy Agency, where she spent a couple of years leading the work to develop a climate change work program that places renewable energy action as a key part of climate change strategies. Prior to her engagement at the Swedish Agency, Angela spent close to a decade working at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and in Zimbabwe and Kenya with civil society organizations on climate, energy and development policy.

Avinash Persaud's career spans finance, public policy, and academia. He is an emeritus professor at Gresham College and an advisor to governments and international institutions on financial policy. Persaud was previously a senior executive at several major banks, including JP Morgan and the Union Bank of Switzerland. He has served as chairman of the Caribbean Community’s Commission on the Economy, the regulatory sub-committee of the UN Commission on Financial Reform, among others. He was also a member of the UK Treasury’s Audit and Risk Committee and the Pew Task Force to the US Senate Banking Committee. Persaud has been a trustee of the Global Association of Risk Professionals and the Royal Economic Society. Persaud received the Institute of International Finance’s Jacques de Larosière Award and was voted amongst the top three finance public intellectuals in the world by an expert panel for Prospect.

Hannah Wanjie Ryder is the CEO of Development Reimagined, an influential African-owned and African-led international development consultancy. A former diplomat and economist with over 20 years of experience and named one of 100 most influential Africans in 2021, Ms Ryder is also inter alia Senior Associate for the Africa Program of the Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS), sits on the Board of the Environmental Defence Fund, is a member of UAE's International Advisory Council on the New Economy, and the Special Adviser for the Common Leveraging Union of Borrowers for the Organisation of Southern Cooperation (OSC). Prior to her role at DR, Ms Ryder led the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s work with China to help scale up and improve cooperation with low- and middle-income countries, including in Africa. She has also played various advisory roles for the UN and OECD and co-authored the seminal Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change in 2006.

Richard Samans is Director of the International Labour Organization’s Research Department and has served as its Sherpa to the G20, G7 and BRICS processes. He served previously as Founder and Chairman of the Climate Disclosure Standards Board, a Managing Director of the World Economic Forum, and Director-General of the Global Green Growth Institute. He worked in the US government as Special Assistant to the President for International Economic Policy and National Security Council Senior Director for International Economic Affairs in the second Clinton-Gore Administration, and as economic policy advisor to US Senate Democratic Leader Thomas A. Daschle.  The author of numerous publications on international trade, financial, environmental, labour and development issues as well as corporate and global governance, he has been a member of the UN Secretary General’s Task Force on Digital Financing of the Sustainable Development Goals, ILO Global Commission on the Future of Work and UNEP Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System. He is currently a member of the Transitional Advisory Group of the IFRS Foundation’s International Sustainability Standards Board.

Based in London, Wignarajah is responsible for identifying investors interested in owning development-focused assets and providing support to J.P. Morgan’s Syndicate and Sales teams in attracting these investors to the company’s development finance-qualified transactions. He will also be responsible for the origination and structuring of new development finance products to further attract institutional investment. He started his career in J.P. Morgan’s Securitized Products Group, where he was responsible for originating, structuring and distributing structured finance products for European and emerging market clients. He has over 15 years of experience working with financial institutions, sponsors, specialty finance lenders and corporate clients. He studied physics and philosophy at the University of Oxford. Jiten Wignarajah will participate in the Public Program session Financing Sustainable Infrastructure with Sustainable Development Bonds on September 26.