The Climate Challenge Conference and Reception

Transcription

1 The Climate Challenge Conference and Reception Thursday 26 November :00-21:00 InterContinental Hotel, Malta investment network

2 Welcome It gives me great pleasure to personally welcome each of you to the Climate Challenge conference. It s an exciting time for the Commonwealth Environmental Investment Platform (CEIP) as we continue to grow internationally, connecting with innovators, investors and governments. We are excited to be here in Malta alongside CHOGM. The CEIP has identified recommendations from the New Climate Economy Report for 2015 that we believe highlight areas where SMEs and Smart Cities go hand in hand. Smart Culture is set to become an integral part of cities, vital to remaining competitive both nationally and internationally. There are 7.3 billion people alive today an increase of 5 billion over the past 100 years. The population of the planet continues to expand rapidly, at a time when natural resources are already under stress. Demand for food, water and energy is increasing, and meeting those needs is by no means a future certainty. Cities and urban areas are rapidly growing across the world. Indeed, urbanisation is one of the greatest climate challenges of our time. With at least 70% of the growing global population expected to be living in cities by 2050, the challenge to manage urban growth sustainably provides a myriad of opportunities, including waste management, transport, energy, construction, technology and all utilities. I invite you to take full advantage of the day by engaging with the speaking experts and those in the audience. We hope to gain an understanding of the challenge of sustainability in an urban context, the full breadth of opportunities on offer, and the learning opportunities available based on regional approaches to implementing sustainability at the city level. Malta home to Europe s first nationwide smart grid is a perfect location for this conference, with its pioneering grid collaboration between IBM and the Maltese Government. We hope to help to replicate this success across the Commonwealth, applying smart technologies and taking advantage of the many benefits of our shared values and history. The Commonwealth is a valuable and proven network for facilitating such connections. The future is very challenging for us all, with climate change and resource scarcity threatening the most vulnerable countries. Building resilience and low carbon economic growth is vital to managing these threats. Finally, many thanks to Commonwealth Argosy for kindly sponsoring the networking reception. I hope you have an excellent conference and look forward to engaging with you throughout the event. Michael Sippitt Chairman, The Commonwealth Environmental Investment Platform

3 Agenda 16:00 Registration and networking 17:00 The Climate Challenge 17:15 Smart Cities Michael Sippitt Chairman, The Commonwealth Environmental Investment Platform Dr Michael Dixon General Manager, Smarter Cities, IBM Corporation Mikele Brack Founding Partner, Urban Living Futures 17:55 Climate Change Professor Simone Borg University of Malta Dr Adrian Champion University of Reading Josh Sawislak Global Director of Resilience, AECOM 18:35 Panel discussion and Q&A 19:00 Reception Chaired by Gavin Ingham Brooke, Infinite Spada Blue Economy Chris Donnelly The Institute for Statecraft Sunil Shastri Lecturer in Marine Policy, and Senior Tutor, University of Hull Sponsored and hosted by Commonwealth Argosy 21:00 Close Follow us for live #climatechallenge

4 Speakers Michael is Chairman of the Commonwealth Environmental Investment Platform (CEIP), a pan-commonwealth network linking entrepreneurs, companies and investors engaged in environmental and sustainable technologies and services. The CEIP has been developed in alliance between the Royal Commonwealth Society and Forbury Investment Network, which is operated by Clarkslegal LLP. Michael Sippitt Chairman, The Commonwealth Environmental Investment Platform As Chairman, Michael leads a team active in the search for and preparation of suitable environmental technology proposals and in building links in the UK and internationally with investors, universities and organisations interested in green technologies. He has particular interest in the international sharing of innovative technologies and investment opportunities, with special focus on meeting environmental needs in developing Commonwealth countries. Concurrently, Michael is Chairman of Clarkslegal LLP, a commercial law firm which also has substantial expertise in environmental, human resources, and public procurement services. Michael also chairs Forbury People Limited, Clarkslegal s associated Human Resources consultancy, which operates in the UK and internationally. Michael Dixon leads IBM s strategy and its implementation for Smarter Cities around the world. With focus on transport, emergency management, water, buildings public safety and other areas, IBM delivers increasing levels of service and better value for money. Cities have become more focused, more pragmatic and more focused on the rapid returns possible from analytics, social media and mobile, secure services delivered from the cloud, in a world of emerging cognitive systems. Dr Michael Dixon General Manager Smarter Cities, IBM Corporation During an IBM career spanning 30 years, Michael has held a series of sales, management and executive positions. His depth of industry experience has seen him working with policy makers and senior executives in public sector organisations through to presenting to Government leaders at APEC summits. He has also been an advisory to Public Sector CEOS on strategy development and project implementation through to partnering with private companies to deliver associated services. Mikele is Co-founder of Urban Living Futures, working with cities and real estate companies to create Innovation Districts (urban:id) designed to accelerate high growth companies, establishing dynamic ecosystems of SMEs and tech businesses. She is also an advisor to smart city start-ups and an expert assessor for SME funding. Mikele led a pioneering initiative at Canary Wharf, London Cognicity, an innovation lab to attract novel smart city SMEs to enter an accelerator, develop their solutions and pilot them on the estate. The programme kick-started a smart city innovator ecosystem which will continue adding value to the host. Mikele Brack Founding Partner, Urban Living Futures Previously, Mikele helped establish the UK government s Future Cities and Energy Systems Catapults and led the Cities and Government sector in General Electric s Global Growth and Operations team, developing commercial models for sustainable energy. Earlier in her career Mikele led urban masterplans and sustainable development studies for new urban areas, regeneration areas and urban infrastructure systems in Asia, Europe and North America.

5 Speakers Professor Simone Borg University of Malta Prof Simone Borg read law at the University of Malta In 2009, she obtained her Ph.D. at the International Maritime Law Institute on the conservation of marine natural resources. She is the ambassador for Malta on climate action. Prof Borg worked for the public sector from 1991 to 2004 first as a First Secretary with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and then Head of the Legal and Multilateral Affairs Section within the Ministry of the Environment. During this time she was mainly responsible for negotiating Malta s position in International Environmental Multilateral Agreements, including the negotiations to the Climate Change Convention and the Kyoto Protocol and the current UNFCCC negotiations. She has drafted legislation and legal policy making in environmental and energy law. She coordinated the transposition of the environmental and energy acquis communautaire during Malta s negotiations to become an EU member State. She also participated as a freelance legal expert on environmental law in various projects with the European Union and the United Nations. Presently, she is Deputy Dean and the Head of Department of the Environmental law and Resources law within the Faculty of Laws at the University of Malta, where she is a resident full time academic. Adrian Champion is a member of the research staff within the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading. His research focusses on understanding the processes that lead to extreme weather events, specifically severe wind storms and flooding events, and how they may change in a warmer climate. He works closely with the re-insurance industry in the UK as well as global energy companies, to improve their understanding of these events and climate change. Dr Adrian Champion University of Reading Josh Sawislak is the global director of resilience for the firm AECOM. In this role, he works across the entire enterprise of AECOM's offerings in planning, design, construction, finance, operations, and development to help develop and leverage resilient strategies projects and clients to address issues such as sustainability, climate change, disaster preparedness, and enterprise risk management. He provides thought leadership and strategic advice to corporations, national governments, municipalities, NGOs, and international organizations across the globe. Josh Sawislak Global Director of Resilience, AECOM Prior to rejoining AECOM, he served in the Administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, most recently as the Associate Director for Climate Preparedness at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, where he develop U.S. federal policy on climate adaptation and resilience and worked with foreign governments and international organization on multilateral and bilateral efforts. He also led the development of the infrastructure recommendations for President Obama s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force.

6 Speakers Gavin Ingham Brooke is Chief Executive of Infinite Spada, an international PR, branding and content consultancy with offices in London, New York and San Francisco. Gavin Ingham Brooke Chief Executive Infinite Spada Gavin advises business leaders on high stakes communications and branding issues frequently alongside other professionals such as industrial relations and defamation lawyers as well as accountants and restructuring consultants. His crisis work for large corporates spans the aftermath of single incidents such as fatalities, data breaches or insolvencies through to longer lasting periods of negative press scrutiny, fuelled by active opposition. Gavin s career began as a modern languages tutor, followed by spells in journalism and publishing before he joined the international built environment consultancy, Travers Morgan, as chief editor and head of graphic design. He headed the professional practices team at a top thirty UK communications consultancy for six years before starting Spada in He is a co-author of the Law Society s Practice Management handbook, and various other professional reference materials. A graduate of Manchester University and reserve officer in the British Army Intelligence Corps, Chris Donnelly headed the British Army s Soviet Studies Research Centre at RMA Sandhurst. Between , as Special Adviser to four NATO Secretaries General, he was closely involved in dealing with the disintegration of the Soviet Union. In 2003 he founded the UK Defence Academy s Advanced Research and Assessment Group. In 2010 he became co-director of The Institute for Statecraft dealing with new security threats and responses specifically, new forms of conflict and warfare, and transforming institutions so that they are fit for today s rapidly changing security environment. Chris Donnelly The Institute for Statecraft Chris has written three books as well as articles on defence, security, strategy and statecraft. He has been specialist Adviser to three UK Defence Secretaries and was a member of Lady Thatcher s Soviet advisory team. He currently serves as Specialist Adviser on the House of Commons Defence Committee, and is adviser to the Foreign Minister of Lithuania. Sunil Shastri Lecturer in Marine Policy, and Senior Tutor, University of Hull Sunil has taught marine policy since 1994 at the University of Hull where he has served, among other committees, on the Council, Court and Senate. Pacem in Maribus was the catalyst that ignited his passion in Ocean and Environmental Governance in 1982 and it has since become his mission in life. He travels extensively through his speaking and consultancy engagements. Sunil advises governments, intergovernmental/nongovernmental organizations and corporations and regularly delivers his MasterClass at numerous institutions, forums and conferences. He was educated at IIT Kharagpur and LSE and belongs to several professional bodies. Sunil conducted the Marine Forum in the 1990s and was invited to join the Greenwich Forum in He is a committed Rotarian and a Past-President of the Rotary Club of Scarborough Cavaliers. Sunil was born in Pune, India in 1955 and has lived in the United Kingdom since 1988 with his wife Smita and their son Sumedh.

7 Sponsors Clarkslegal LLP Clarkslegal LLP is a leading, full service commercial law firm with a reputation for being innovative, practical, commercial and strategic, able to draw on expertise from our associated companies to help deliver solutions for our clients in the UK and internationally. We act for a wide range of businesses, from start up and SMEs, to multinationals and FTSE250 companies as well as numerous public sector bodies and individual clients. Our aim is to make things happen for our clients, whether from a legal perspective or by helping them make the right connections to achieve their desired business outcomes. Internationally, we are part of TAGLaw, a major global network of law firms giving clients access to high-quality legal advice in nearly 100 countries. Commonwealth Argosy Ltd The Commonwealth Argosy is an international commercial initiative, capitalising on the fast growing potential for increased trade within and on behalf of the Commonwealth. Our aim is to promote and strengthen business opportunities primarily for the SME and private company segment. Commonwealth Argosy Ltd is primarily an events and expert network business with a portfolio of B2B and B2G events within its Argosy Calendar. It also offers events delivery and networking solutions to clients through a fee based membership of the Argosy Club. Operating through three specialised subsidiaries the Commonwealth Argosy delivers events and membership; the online retailing of high end Commonwealth produced merchandise; and in due course a ship based events venue. The Argosy group also supports the Commonwealth Argosy Foundation focused on the protection and sustainable development of the maritime environment. For further information please visit

8 London Office Forbury Investment Network 12 Henrietta Street Covent Garden London WC2E 8LH Tel: +44(0) Fax: +44(0) Reading Office Forbury Investment Network One Forbury Square The Forbury Reading RG1 3EB Tel: +44(0) Fax: +44(0) Cardiff Office Forbury Investment Network 2 Caspian Point Caspian Way Cardiff Bay CF10 4DQ Tel: +44(0) Fax: +44(0) The Commonwealth Environmental Investment Platform (CEIP) is an alliance between The Royal Commonwealth Society and Forbury Investment Network and is managed by Forbury Investment Network Ltd. Forbury Investment Network Ltd is wholly owned by Clarkslegal LLP. Registered Number: Registered Office: 12 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LH.