Event Date: March 1, 2023 - 11:00am to 12:30pm EST
Location: Webinar

Presented by CIPS and IPEN

Ottawa’s International Political Economy Network (IPEN) invite you to attend an expert panel seeking to contextualize the latest developments in the world of climate finance.

In recent years the international community has sought to create a multi-faceted finance regime to support climate change mitigation, adaptation, and to help cover the costs associated with loss and damage in developing economies. As with all issues of climate governance, questions abound about how to ensure the finance regime accurately reflects differing levels of responsibility for climate change, and how to further ramp up ambition. Current geopolitical and economic realities like the war in Ukraine and the inflation crisis also raise questions about the willingness of wealthier Annex I nations to contribute adequate funds. This virtual Zoom roundtable brings together a handful of experts in climate finance to discuss the most important developments in the field. This event is intended for a broad audience of interested citizens, students, fellow academics and policymakers, and members of the public interested in climate change governance and finance.

This event will take place in English.

Speakers:

Leia Achampong is the Senior Policy and Advocacy Officer – Climate Finance – at Eurodad. She joined Eurodad in April 2020 to start up Eurodad’s policy work and research on climate finance, which includes building network capacity to work on climate finance. Leia began working on climate change issues in 2011 on policy, advocacy, (network) coordination and in communications and events. Prior to joining Eurodad, she worked at the WWF European Policy Office for over 4 years, and has also worked at Climate Action Network – Europe, Campaign Against Climate Change and the Environmental Investment Organisation. Leia holds a Masters degree in Sustainability Sciences and Policy from Maastricht University. In 2017, she was also lucky enough to have participated in the US State Department’s International Visitors Leadership Programme (IVLP). Leia is from London and in addition to English, which is her mother tongue, speaks passable French.

Rishikesh Ram Bhandary is the Assistant Director of the Global Economic Governance Initiative at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center. He previously worked as a post-doctoral scholar at the Climate Policy Lab in the Fletcher School at Tufts University. He is also a member of the Task Force on Climate, Development and the International Monetary Fund. He is an expert on climate finance and international climate negotiations. His research focuses on how developing countries mobilize finance from different international sources. His current work revolves around the deployment of renewable energy through the Belt and Road Initiative. He has extensive experience engaging with the climate negotiations in various capacities and has helped to train negotiators from the Least Developed Countries and the Climate Vulnerable Forum. He has been a contributing author and chapter scientist in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report. He was an Aspen-Avantha fellow at the Aspen Institute in New Delhi and a fellow at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. He serves on the editorial board of Global Policy: Next Generation.

Mariama Williams, PhD, is a feminist economist working on economic development, macroeconomic, trade external debt and finance issues, with a focus on gender equality and women’s empowerment, social equity, sustainable finance & development and climate change issues. Williams is Senior Associate, the Political Ecology and Sustainability Programme, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), a board director of the Institute of Law and Economics (ILE, Jamaica), a member of the Caribbean Feminist Action Network, a member of the Steering Committee of the Gender and Trade Coalition and the Principal Consultant for Integrated Policy Research Institute (IPRI – Syntropy).

Julie Segal works as Senior Manager, Climate Finance at Environmental Defence, where she advances climate-related financial policy and regulation. She previously managed a portfolio of impact investments at the McConnell Foundation. Her career combines sustainable finance and climate advocacy. She sits on the investment advisory committee of The Michaëlle Jean Foundation and is an Associate at Youth Climate Lab. She’s won national and global awards for her work integrating environmental justice into sustainable finance, including winning First Prize Paper in the Ethics & Trust in Finance Global Prize. Julie writes about climate finance in the media, volunteers with various community- and youth-led environmental groups, and advises foundations on strategies for impact investing. Julie completed a Bachelor of Commerce at McGill University. 

Moderator: 

Ryan M. Katz-Rosene – Associate Professor, School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa and IPEN coordinator