After COP29: What’s next for climate policy
Date and time
03 December 2024, 17:15 – 18:15 (online event)
About
Following COP29, where does the world stand in the fight against climate change?
Blavatnik School experts Rachel Kyte, Professor of Practice and UK Special Representative on Climate, and Thomas Hale, Professor in Public Policy, are joined by three current Master of Public Policy students, Vanessa Nakate, Omnia El Omrani and Camille Etienne for a discussion based on their experiences of shaping climate policy across the globe.
About the speakers
Rachel Kyte is a Professor of Practice in Climate Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government and special representative on climate for the UK government. She is Dean Emerita of The Fletcher School at Tufts University, where she was the first woman to lead the United States’ oldest graduate-only school of global affairs. Rachel served as special representative of the UN secretary-general and chief executive officer of Sustainable Development for All (SEforALL). She previously was the World Bank Group vice president and special envoy for climate change and served as an advisor to the UN secretary-general on climate action and the crisis response to the invasion of Ukraine, chaired the Rwandan Green Fund (FONERWA) and advised the UK government on COP26.
Thomas Hale’s research explores how we can manage transnational problems effectively and fairly. He seeks to explain how political institutions evolve – or not – to face the challenges raised by globalisation and interdependence, with a particular emphasis on environmental, economic and health issues. A US national, Professor Hale has studied and worked in Argentina, China and Europe. His books include Long Problems: Climate Change and the Challenge of Governing Across Time (Princeton 2024), Beyond Gridlock (Polity 2017), Between Interests and Law: The Politics of Transnational Commercial Disputes (Cambridge 2015), Transnational Climate Change Governance (Cambridge 2014), and Gridlock: Why Global Cooperation Is Failing when We Need It Most (Polity 2013). Professor Hale co-leads the Net Zero Tracker and the Net Zero Regulation and Policy Hub.
Vanessa Nakate is an environmentalist, Uganda’s first Fridays for Future striker and a Master of Public Policy student at the Blavatnik School of Government. She co-founded Tard Foundation, an organisation working to support the work of grassroots activists. Vanessa holds a Business Administration degree from Makerere University Business School, and is the author of A Bigger Picture and the founder of the Rise Up climate movement, which works to amplify the voices of different activists from the African continent. Vanessa started the Vash Green Schools Project, which aims to install solar panels and clean cooking stoves in Uganda’s schools. She was appointed a UNICEF goodwill ambassador in 2022 and serves on the Malala Fund Board.
Omnia El Omrani is an Egyptian medical doctor with nine years of experience in climate change and health and a current Master of Public Policy student at the Blavatnik School of Government. She served as the first official Youth Envoy for the UN Climate Summit (COP27) to the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs, facilitating the participation of thousands of youth in climate negotiations, and was then appointed as the Health Envoy for COP28 UAE, where she co-chaired the first Ministerial on Climate and Health. Omnia has been a Climate and Health Policy Fellow at the Climate Cares Centre at Imperial College London focusing on climate and mental health. She co-leads the Equity Group of the Lancet Commission on Viral Spillover Prevention and serves on two other Lancet Commissions.
Camille Etienne is the director of her own NGO, which combines scientific expertise, political lobbying and artistic form. She has authored a book on climate change and the idea of powerlessness and recently collaborated to draft legislation banning forever chemicals in France. She is also engaged with the issue of deep-sea mining in international negotiations focusing on the Svalbard Arctic region. Camille studied philosophy at La Sorbonne and political science at Sciences Po.