TEC 2019: Cooperation for Climate Stability
Friday, March, 29th, 2019
Friday, March 29 - Saturday, March 30, 2019
On October 8, 2018, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a stark warning: limiting global warming to 1.5C will require “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.” In fact, the IPCC concluded that “the next few years are probably the most important in our history.”
Implementing the sweeping changes recommended by the IPCC is an enormous challenge. It will require billions of dollars of funding, as well as coordination between stakeholders across the fields of policy, economics, engineering, banking, transportation, electric generation, and more. That’s why the 2019 Tufts Energy Conference theme is Cooperation for Climate Stability. This conference's goal was to take one small step toward concerted climate action by bringing all of those stakeholders into the same place to tackle some of the most formidable hurdles to success.
Satya Tripathi, Assistant Secretary-General and Head of the New York Office of the United Nations Environment Programme
Mr. Tripathi has since 2017 served as Senior Adviser on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at the United Nations Environment Programme. A development economist and lawyer with over 35 years of experience, Mr. Tripathi has served with the UN since 1998 in Europe, Asia and Africa on strategic assignments in sustainable development, human rights, democratic governance and legal affairs. He previously served as the Director and Executive Head of the UN Office for REDD+ Coordination in Indonesia, as well as for the UN Recovery Coordinator for the US$ 7 billion post-tsunami and post-conflict recovery efforts in Aceh and Nias. He also served as Chair of the Committees on Laws and Treaties for the UN-mediated Cyprus unification talks in 2004.
Earlier in his career he served as a Senior Distinguished Fellow on Natural Resources Governance with the World Agroforestry Centre; and on the World Economic Forum’s Global Advisory Council on Forests.Mr. Tripathi holds Honours Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Commerce; and Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Law from Berhampur University, India.
Professor Kelly Sims Gallagher–Professor of Energy and Environmental Policy, Director of the Center for International Environment & Resource Policy
Kelly Sims Gallagher is professor of energy and environmental policy at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She directs the Climate Policy Lab and the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at Fletcher. From June 2014 – September 2015 she served in the Obama administration as a senior policy advisor in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and as senior China advisor in the Special Envoy for Climate Change office at the U.S. State Department.
Gallagher is a member of the board of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. She is also a faculty affiliate with the Harvard University Center for Environment. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement and she also serves on the board of the Energy Foundation. Broadly, she focuses on energy and climate policy in both the United States and China. She specializes in how policy spurs the development and deployment of cleaner and more efficient energy technologies, domestically and internationally.
A Truman Scholar, she has a MALD and Ph.D. in international affairs from The Fletcher School, and an A.B. from Occidental College. She speaks Spanish and basic Mandarin Chinese, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the author of "China Shifts Gears: Automakers, Oil, Pollution, and Development," (The MIT Press 2006), editor of "Acting in Time on Energy Policy," (Brookings Institution Press 2009), "The Global Diffusion of Clean Energy Technologies: Lessons from China," (MIT Press 2014), and numerous academic articles and policy reports.