Europe’s Climate and Energy summit: pathways are clear but there are obstacles ahead

Stephanie Brancaforte currently leads the world’s largest petition and activism platform, Change.org, and runs Fund Our Future, which focuses on stopping financial flows to climate-destructive projects and constructing highly consultative ‘green new deal’ initiatives.

Previously, she led Greenpeace International’s climate and energy program, overseeing the organisation’s efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. She has supported negotiations, humanitarian efforts and activist movements in the Middle East for Avaaz, the Assistance Coordination Unit of the Syrian Opposition, and at CIVICUS.

She also served as a United States diplomat based in Berlin for several years, a researcher at Amnesty International in the Great Lakes region, an investigator for the International Criminal Court, an international law adviser for the Iraqi High Tribunal in Baghdad, and taught graduate school courses at George Washington University.

Matthias Duwe heads the Climate division at the Ecologic Institute, an independent think tank for environmental research and policy analysis. His main role involves the coordination of the institute’s climate change related work strands. He focuses primarily on the EU’s energy and climate policies, including their connections to national policy and the international regime. Duwe has actively followed international climate negotiations since 1999. He has extensive knowledge of climate policy and has interacted with stakeholders in a range of high-level dialogues, making him an accomplished speaker and facilitator. He recently led the analysis of the report “Planning for Net Zero – Assessing the Draft National Energy and Climate Plans”.

Mark Fulton has decades of experience in financial markets. As a recognised economist and market strategist at leading financial institutions, he has researched international economies, currencies, fixed income and equity markets. Previously, Fulton headed research at DB Climate Change Advisors at Deutsche Bank where he produced papers for investors on climate, cleaner energy and sustainability. He later became Co-Chair of the UN Environment’s Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) Climate Change Working Group and part of the technical committee of the UN Secretary-General’s Sustainable Energy for All.

Fulton currently holds multiple roles, chairing the Research Council at the Carbon Tracker Initiative, acting a Senior Fellow at CERES and providing his expertise as Special Advisor to Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) and the Carbon Disclosure Project. He is also a member of the Capital Markets Climate Initiative, the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Climate Bond Initiative.

Olivier Grabette has worked for Réseau de Transport d’Électricité (RTE), the electricity transmission system operator of France, for the past decade and has been Executive Vice-President for more than half of that time. He began his career in the engineering department of Électricité de France (EDF) and now serves as Executive Vice-President and Member of the Board of RTE, where he is in charge of Economy, Research and Development, Expertise and IT. He previously worked for the top management of the company’s National Centre for Grid Expertise. In 2012, he created the Research and Development Department of RTE and he has been responsible for Economy and R&D since 2014.

Annegret Groebel is a German public servant with over two decades of experience at the Federal Network Agency for Electricity, Gas, Telecommunications, Post and Railway (BNetzA). She is also heavily involved with the Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER), a non-profit organisation for Europe’s national energy regulators, having served as its President since January 2019 and as co-chair of its Market Integration and Transparency (MIT) Working Group since 2013. In addition to her work at BNetzA and CEER, she is as a member of the Board of Regulators of the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER). Groebel’s extensive professional experience has provided her with an excellent knowledge of the European regulatory framework for electronic communications as well as the regulatory framework for the internal energy market.

Prior to joining Friends of Europe, Dharmendra Kanani was director of policy at the European Foundation Centre (EFC). He was the England director at the Big Lottery Fund, the largest independent funder in the UK and fourth largest in the world. Dharmendra has held senior positions in the public and voluntary sectors and advisor to numerous ministerial policy initiatives across the UK.

Michał Kurtyka is a Polish physicist, engineer, economist, and civil servant. He has been the Secretary of State at the Polish Ministry of the Environment since 2016 and served as president of COP24. Previously Kurtyka was the Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Energy, where he was responsible for the technological development and introduction of innovations to the energy sector, implementation of climate and energy policy in the fuel and gas sector, conducting international relations with states and international organisations. He was part of the negotiations on the provisions of the Winter Package, as well as legal acts regulating the electricity market in Europe. He represents Poland in the International Energy Agency.

Andrew McDowell is one of the eight Vice Presidents of the EIB who, together with President Werner Hoyer, form the Management Committee that runs the bank on a day-to-day basis. In that capacity, Vice President McDowell has oversight of the Bank’s treasury, economics and evaluation functions, as well as lending operations in energy and the bioeconomy. He is also responsible for institutional relations with 10 European and 14 Asian countries. Prior to joining the EIB in 2016, Andrew was Chief Economic Adviser to Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny from 2011, co-ordinating the policies that supported Ireland’s recovery from the economic crisis and sovereign bail-out. He took undergraduate and post-graduate studies in business, economics, finance and international relations from University College Dublin and John Hopkins University.

Mauro Petriccione worked extensively on EU trade policy before joining the Directorate-General for Climate Action, covering a wide range of activities and negotiations, from trade and standards, to defence, investment, competition and dispute settlement, as well as relations with member states and European institutions. He was the deputy director-general for trade, responsible for trade relations with Asia, Latin America and countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. Petriccione also served as chief negotiator for the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement and the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement.

Mark Radka has held numerous roles at UNEP for the past 25 years. He now heads the day-to-day management and general coordination of UNEP’s energy and climate change mitigation efforts. He keeps watch over staffing and programme budgets, maintains relations with donors and supporting institutions, and oversees communication and climate change mitigation ‘messages’, including within the UN system. Radka is an engineer by training and is particularly interested in technology transfer and the technology needs of developing countries. He was also a coordinating lead author of the IPCC Special Report on Methodological and Technical Issues in Technology Transfer.

Next to his position as Head of Public Affairs, Regulation and Antitrust for Europe, Valentino Rossi is also the Head of the Brussels Office in the Enel Europe Unit. Rossi has served as Head of Business Development for Enel Green Power and has been with the Enel Group for more than ten years in a variety of roles, including Head of Strategy, Mergers and Acquisitions for Enel and Chief Financial Officer for 3SUN.

Maria Spyraki is an award-winning Greek journalist and politician now serving her second mandate in the European Parliament. She actively works in numerous committees, including Industry, Research, and Energy (ITRE), Regional Development (REGI) and Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI). Prior to her public service, she worked for 22 years as a journalist in Greece. She drew on this experience during her time in the Athens Press Office of the European Parliament and the office of Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas. Spyraki is a firm believer in the transformative power of research and innovation to tackle climate change.

Passionate about environmental behaviour, Linda Steg is currently a researcher and professor at the University of Groningen. She studies factors influencing sustainable behaviour, the effects and acceptability of strategies aimed at promoting sustainable behaviour, and public perceptions of technology and system changes. She is member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW), and lead author of the IPCC special report on 1.5°C and AR6. She coordinates the PERSON platform that aims to integrate international top Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) research on energy and to regularly deliver an interdisciplinary research agenda on SSH and energy. She participates in varies interdisciplinary and international research programmes, and collaborates with practitioners working in industry, governments and NGOs.

Leena Ylä-Mononen has worked with national, European and international environmental policy and administration for over 30 years. Before joining the EEA, Ylä-Mononen was director general at the Finnish Ministry of the Environment, where she was in charge of the Ministry’s Climate and Environmental Protection Department, dealing with environmental policy issues and EU files. Prior to joining the Ministry Ylä-Mononen worked in management positions at the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) in Helsinki, first as a head of unit and then as one of the directors. She also worked at the European Commission, Directorate-General for Environment, on policy files related to chemicals, pesticides and multilateral environmental agreements related to chemicals.