High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Finance (AGF)

Jens Stoltenberg (Co-Chair)

Jens Stoltenberg, the Prime Minister of Norway, hosted the recently concluded Oslo Climate and Forests Conference. Norway has historically been very active in the efforts to confront climate change, and that has not changed under the leadership of Jens Stoltenberg. Recently, he has been seen leading the fight to reduce carbon emissions caused by global deforestation because he believes through stopping deforestation, "we can achieve the largest, the quickest and the most affordable emission cuts of greenhouse gases".

Meles Zenawi (Co-Chair)

Meles Zenawi is the other Co-Chair of this Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing. As the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, he has been very active and helpful in trying to move a climate change agreement forward according to heads of states from several developed nations. In fact, in December of last year, Meles Zenawi made a joint press release with French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, which declared that the African Union position at Copenhagen was a 2 degree C temperature target; 10 billion Euros in 'fast-track financing'; and 100 billion euros in 'long-term' financing. The Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance and much of Africa, however, was furious with this joint statement, pointing out it was not based on science and a 2 degree C reduction and 10 billion in 'fast-track financing' would not be enough for Africa.

Montek Singh Ahluwalia

Montek Singh Ahluwalia, India's chief economic policy advisor, has had a significant role in policies from economics to education reform and has been instrumental in charting India's path forward over the past 16 years. On climate, he has consistently emphasized the importance of being fair, stating, "It's not logical to talk of emissions cuts without reference to per capita emission levels. It's logical to talk about burden-sharing in terms of per capita emissions entitlements".

Ernesto Cordero Arroyo

Ernesto Cordero Arroyo, the Mexican Minister of Finance, has taught economics at the University of Pennsylvania and recently called for decisively increasing developing countries’ participation in international financial institutions to make them more representative. In terms of combatting climate change, he is considered one of the chief architects of the ProArbol plan, which provides additional income to families and communities that maintain and harvest their forests in a way that is sustainable.

Soumaila Cissé

Soumaila Cissé has served as the president of the Commission of the Economic and Monetary Union of West Africa since 2003. Before his current position, he ran for president unsuccessfully in 2002 and founded the Union for the Republic and Democracy in June 2003. In terms of public financing, he has stressed that for Africa to be successful, multinational sources such as the African Development Bank must finance infrastructure projects as part of private sector development and social sector initiatives in Africa.

Vice Minister, Finance

(China)

Zhu Guangyao

Zhu Guangyao, who regularly represents China at overseas meetings, was just promoted to Vice Finance Minister of China in May 2010. On climate policy, he has decried calls for a carbon tax on imported goods as trade protectionism. Furthermore, he has been involved in China's discussion about developing their own carbon tax scheme to take advantage of WTO rules that prevent the same tax being from applied twice to goods. As China's voice on the panel, his stance will likely help shape the conversation.

Sri Mulyani Indrawati

Indonesia's former Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, ranked by Forbes Magazine as the 23rd most powerful woman in the world in 2008, was appointed as the Managing Director of the World Bank Group in May 2010. The World Bank remarked, "She has been a leader in the developing world on climate change, and active in the international arena through the G-20, APEC, ASEAN and other groups". In her new post, Indrawati will continue to represent the developing world's concerns about climate change.

Bharrat Jagdeo

Bharrat Jagdeo, President of Guyana for over a decade, has been collaborating with a number of organizations in Guyana and internationally, to both spread the word about Guyana’s commitment to forest protection and climate change mitigation, and to inspire collective action on a global scale. Recently, he has spoken frequently of the need for developing countries to be at the forefront of identifying solutions to climate change, such as fortifying 360 kilometers of Guyana's low-lying coastline. In fact ,he has travled the world explaining a Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) he has for Guyana to generate dollars while simultaneously protecting its rain forest and boosting Guyana’s economy.

Donald Kaberuka

Donald Kaberuka, who has been President of the African Development Bank since July 2005, initiated and implemented major economic and governance reforms in the fiscal, monetary, budgetary and structural domains including independence of the Central Bank. He acknowledges the interconnected themes of development and climate change and stated that climate change, "adds a significant additional burden to existing challenges of poverty, of inadequate access to energy, water, and basic infrastructure". He will be sure to voice the concerns and views of Africa as a continent during the discussions.

Caio Koch-Weser

Caio Koch-Weser, who has previously worked as a managing director of the World Bank, now represents the Deutsche Bank in key public forums worldwide. On the climate change front, he wants small coalitions of cities, countries and regions to work on issues such as deforestation and feed-in tariffs as well as some way to get companies involved in “iconic mega-projects” such as the Desertec plan by Deutsche Bank, Siemens AG and other companies to tap the Sahara for solar power. He has stated that the UN Clean Development Mechanism needs a redesign that would help it cope with larger volumes of carbon credits expected in the future and to make its market for carbon offsets “more professional”.

Christine Lagarde

Christine Lagarde made history as the first female chairman of the international law firm Baker & McKenzie and is the first woman ever to become minister of Economic Affairs of a G8 economy. She has repeatedly said that climate change is an economic issue and the cost of doing nothing is greater than the cost of action. Setting a price on carbon and involving the private sector are her two main strategy points for combatting climate change.

Trevor Manuel

Trevor Manuel, formerly the Finance Minister of South Africa, resigned after the resignation of President Thabo Mbeki, unsettling the financial market, but now has agreed to serve under the current president and is in charge of the National Planning Commission. He has urged South African companies to make use of clean development mechanisms, in line with the Kyoto Protocol and also proposed South Africa's first carbon tax on energy generated from non-renewable sources, highlighting his commitment to address climate change in South Africa - the 14th largest emitter in the world because of its high coal use.

Bob McMullan

Bob McMullan is a politician who has represented the Australian Labor Party in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. On climate finance, he acknowledges that developed countries must find extra resources and that public financing can reach places that private financing will not. Furthermore, he reported to the advisory group on climate-change financing in London that carbon markets could provide the right economic incentives to cut forest carbon emissions.

Amb. Pedro Luiz Carneiro de Mendonça

Ambassador Pedro Luiz Carnerio de Mendonca has represented Brazil in many climate change discussions, particularly those concerning deforestation. This is significant because Brazil plays an important and unique role in climate change. It is one of the ten largest economies in the world and — most importantly for climate change — home to one of the greatest ecosystems and forests of the planet: the Amazon.

Mutsuyoshi Nishimura

Mutsuyoshi Nishimura, Special Advisor to the Cabinet of Japan, has urged the international community to move beyond the intractable arguments between industrialized and developing nations, and instead move forward towards a "low carbon civilization", which serves the long-term self-interest of all nations. In a 2009 Policy Brief, he argues for an Upstream Global Emission Trading System (UGETS) where nations would engage in a global emission trading system but only need to monitor their domestic shipments and imports of fossil fuels.

Tharman Shanmugaratnam

Tharman Shanmugaratnam is Minister of Finance and chair of the Economic Strategies Committee, formed in 2009 to “develop strategies for Singapore to build capabilities and maximise opportunities as a global city in a new world environment, so as to achieve sustained and inclusive growth.” He was also admitted to the G30 in June 2008. In terms of climate change, he has publicly stated that it is at the forefront of the global agenda and although a sense of urgency is developing, accountability and financing will remain two vexing issues moving forward.

George Soros

George Soros is a Hungarian-American currency speculator, stock investor, businessman, philanthropist, and political activist. Despite coming from the private sector, he stays involved with international climate policy - praising the recent pact reached by Indonesia and Norway that aims to safeguard valuable rain forests. Soros has recently supported tapping into the International Monetary Fund and using special drawing rights (SDRs) for generating climate finance.

Professor of Economics and Government

(Great Britain)

Nicholas Stern

Nicholas Stern is a British economist and academic who published the highly influential 700-page report entitled "The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change" which discusses the effects of global warming on the world economy. He believes any international agreement on climate change must be effective by setting strict timetable for emissions reduction, efficient by favoring the use of price mechanisms, and equitable by taking into account a country's wealth as well as past and future emissions.

Lawrence H. Summers

Lawrence Summers is an American economist and the Director of the White House's National Economic Council for President Barack Obama. Although Summers has ben very wary in the past of moving quickly on a carbon cap, he recently presented the "economic case for comprehensive energy reform" in a speech to the U.S. Energy Information Administration Conference. In the past, Summers has taken a conservative stance on innovative sources of finance and his role in this discussion will be key for the evolution of climate finance in 2010 as he represents the Obama Administration.