Commission for Environmental Cooperation

Santiago Lorenzo Alonso is the global expert on climate finance for WWF International.

Formerly he was the Deputy General Director of Multilateral Environmental Agreements in the International Affairs Unit of the Mexican Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources.

He is also a PhD candidate at the Autonomus University of Barcelona in environmental sciences and ecological economics. He has been an independent consultant in environmental economics, particularly in the fields of economic instruments for environmental protection, environmental tax reform, economic valuation of biodiversity, finance for sustainable development, and genetically modified organisms.

From 2001 to March 2007, he was director of legal and environmental analysis in the Mexican Ministry of Finance. He coordinated the development of environmental fiscal instruments and the review of perverse subsidies.

He was director of environmental economics at the Mexican National Institute of Ecology until 2001 and also vice-chairman of the OECD working group on economic aspects of biodiversity  between 1999 and 2001. During this period, three handbooks were produced by this working group.

Lorenzo is an economist and holds a master of science degree in environmental assessment and evaluation from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Martín Cadena is a biologist with more than 10 years experience in managing protected areas as tools for achieving biodiversity conservation and sustainable development, and in the creation of innovative ways to jointly face climate change and support biodiversity conservation. He currently coordinates a national-scale, GEF-supported project, which seeks to reduce the negative impacts of climate change on Mexico’s protected natural areas.

Previously, he worked in different areas of the Mexican National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (Conanp) on such topics as climate change, monitoring and decision-making processes, sustainable development activities, and implementation of water education programs.

Before that, Cadena was a research assistant and a high school teacher, collaborating in a long- term monitoring program with small mammals and ants as bioindicators and coaching students on research methods for developing their own projects.

Chris Field is the director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies. His research focuses on climate change, ranging from work on improving climate models, to prospects for renewable energy systems, to community organizations that can minimize the risk of a tragedy of the commons. Field was co-chair of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from 2008–2015, where he led the effort on the IPCC Special Report on “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation”  (2012) and the Working Group II contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (2014) on Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. His widely cited work has earned many recognitions, including election to the US National Academy of Sciences, the Max Planck Research Award, and the Roger Revelle Medal.

Katharine J. Mach is a senior research associate at Carnegie Science’s Department of Global Ecology. Her research is generating neat-term possibilities for assessing climate change risks and response options. Her work focuses on improved methods for integrating diverse evidence, incorporating expert judgment, and communicating and validating resulting syntheses of knowledge. The goal is advancing actionable foundations for climate solutions. From 2010 until 2015, Mach co-directed the scientific activities of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which focuses on impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. This work culminated in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report and its Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation. She received her PhD from Stanford University and AB (summa cum laude) from Harvard College.

Aerin Jacob is a Liber Ero postdoctoral fellow at the University of Victoria. Trained as an ecologist and conservation scientist, her research on strategies to protect biodiversity while maintaining human livelihoods has taken her to Africa, the Arctic, and across North America. Her doctorate, from McGill University, concerned tropical forest restoration and ecology in Uganda. Currently, she works with First Nations in British Columbia, Canada, to study the social, economic, and environmental trade-offs of sustainable development and inform marine and coastal planning. Jacob is also a member of the Sustainable Canada Dialogues, an initiative of leading Canadian researchers working on climate change and sustainability policy, and holds a Wilburforce Conservation Fellowship, working in a network of scientists across North America on conservation research, management, and policy. She is active in science outreach, including storytelling, environmental education, and efforts to support women and under-represented minorities in science. She can be found online at aerinjacob.ca and @Aerin_J.

Sylvie de Blois received a PhD in biology from the Université de Montréal in 2001. She is an associate professor of ecology at the Department of Plant Science and the School of Environment of McGill University. She is also the director of the McGill School of Environment, which offers interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate programs through partnerships with the Faculties of Science, Arts, Agricultural and Environmental Science, Law, and Management at McGill. She was an invited scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia and at the École des Mines de Nantes (France). She is a member of the Quebec Center for Biodiversity Science and a scientific advisor on a European-funded program aimed at supporting the international mobility of emergent researchers. Her research focuses on plant ecology, landscape ecology, environmental management, biological invasion, and climate change. She has recently co-authored a book on the impact of climate change on Quebec biodiversity that was awarded this year’s Prix Hubert-Reeves.

A dedicated conservationist with masters and doctoral degrees in environmental sciences and natural resources, Nélida Barajas Acosta has worked in ecosystem and wildlife management with emphases on water, river basins, ecosystem services, environmental education, protected areas, smart infrastructure, sustainable hydropower, financial mechanisms for conservation, and international environmental affairs. She has served as a freshwater program officer with the World Wildlife Fund (2004 to 2007), project director and infrastructure specialist with The Nature Conservancy (2007–2014), senior advisor on sustainable hydropower to Mexico’s National Electricity Commission (2014–2015), and is currently coordinator of core topics for the upcoming Conference of the Parties (COP13)–Convention on Biological Diversity with Mexico’s National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (Conabio) and the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat).

Barajas Acosta is a member of the Commission of Ecosystem Management with the IUCN, the National Academy of Environmental Education, and a former member of the Climate Change Council at San Luis Potosí, Mexico.

Louis Blumberg, director of the California Climate Change Program of the Nature Conservancy’s California Chapter, leads a multidisciplinary team developing a comprehensive suite of natural climate solutions, including strategies that will reduce or avoid greenhouse gas emissions from forested and other natural lands, and enhance the resilience of human and natural communities from the escalating impacts of climate change. Mr. Blumberg has been directly involved in developing climate and biodiversity policy in California since 2000, working with a variety of governmental and nongovernmental partners in developing the forest carbon protocols now in use in California’s carbon market and in establishing a public policy platform to promote climate resilience at the local, regional and state levels. He is a member of the Nature Conservancy’s international climate change team and the chair of the Conservancy’s Carbon Project Review Committee.

Mr. Blumberg joined the Nature Conservancy in 2004 as director of its new forest initiative and was appointed director of its California climate change program in 2007. Before that, he served as deputy director of external affairs for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, as assistant regional director of The Wilderness Society, and as a management analyst at the US Environmental Protection Agency. He holds an M.A. in urban planning and environmental policy from the University of California–Los Angeles and a B.A. from the University of California–Santa Barbara.