Expert Peer Review Group

Co-Chair: Dr Thomas Hale

Tom is Associate Professor in Global Public Policy at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government. His research explores how political institutions evolve–or not–to face the challenges raised by globalization and interdependence, with a particular emphasis on environmental, economic, and health issues. He holds a PhD in Politics from Princeton University, a Master of Global Politics from the London School of Economics, and a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School. His books include Beyond Gridlock (Polity 2017), Between Interests and Law: The Politics of Transnational Commercial Disputes (Cambridge 2015), and Transnational Climate Change Governance (Cambridge 2014). Tom leads the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker.

Dr. Manjyot Kaur Ahluwalia

Manjyot is the Senior Program Officer, US and International Climate Cooperation at World Wildlife Fund-US and provides strategic support to the Alliances for Climate Action on behalf of WWF and its global partners, a growing body of multistakeholder national alliances across North America, Latin America, Africa and the Asia Pacific to accelerate the transition to an inclusive 1.5C aligned net-zero future by 2050. Manjyot holds a PhD in Public Administration and Environmental Policy from the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, DC, a Masters in Corporate Sustainability from the School of Sustainability, at Arizona State University, and a BA in Economics from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, India.

Jesica Andrews

Jesica is a Senior Project Manager at the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative, where she leads portfolio target-setting with investors in the UN-Convened Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance. She also serves as the Co-Director of the Investor Agenda Investor Climate Action Plans Working Group. Prior to working with UNEP FI, she worked on climate change projects across with multiple UN agencies, governments and private firms across some 35 countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Jes supports investors in understanding climate risk and aligning with the UNFCCC Paris Agreement. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of New Mexico with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Economics and holds a Master of Finance from the University of Cambridge, Judge Business School.

Derik Broekhoff

Derik is a Senior Scientist with the Stockholm Environment Institute, where his work focuses on the effective design and implementation of environmental market mechanisms, and assessing subnational and local climate mitigation policies. Prior to joining SEI, Derik was Vice President for Policy at the Climate Action Reserve in Los Angeles, where he oversaw development of the Reserve’s voluntary carbon offset program and its transition into California’s regulatory cap-and-trade program. Before that, he served on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative team at the World Resources Institute, where he managed work on the design of emissions trading programs and greenhouse gas accounting standards. Derik has a Master of Public Policy from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Bachelor of International Relations from Stanford University.

Cesar Carreño

Cesar leads the Climate Team services for Nexio Projects, a Rotterdam, Netherlands based consultancy which supports the private sector with compliance for Ecovadis, B-Corp and additional key sustainability services such as Science Based Targets support, CO2 footprint for both corporate and product based on GHG Protocol and ISO 14064, Climate Gap Analysis and Green supply chain.

Between 2015 and 2021 Cesar worked for ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability in Bonn, Germany where he led the Climate Data Team, this fruitful tenure offered the opportunity to support the 2021 edits of the Global protocol for Community Scaled GHG emissions inventory and collaborate with the Cities Science Based Target technical guidance report.

From 2011 until 2014 he worked for TÜV Rheinland in Cologne, Germany as project Manager for Carbon and Energy services in which he became acquaintance with Kyoto Flex- Mechs as well as Iso 14064 and the GHG protocol. Cesar has a Bachelor in Agricultural Engineering with a minor in business management from Universidad Católica de Guayaquil, a Master of Project Management from Universidad de León, Spain, and a Master of Sciences in International Material Flow Management from FH Trier in Germany.

Co-Chair: Paula Ellinger

Paula leads Fundación Avina´s Climate Action Program, engaging with local and sub-national actors as well as national governments and regional networks, to accelerate the transition towards a net-zero and resilient future. Paula is member of the technical committee of Climate Finance Group of Latin American and the Caribbean (GFLAC) and was part of the Executive Committee of the Center for Climate Change and Decision Making Between 2014 and 2016. She holds a Bachelor of International Relations from Universidade de Brasília and Master of Local and Regional Development from the International Institute of Social Studies, part of Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Nehmat Kaur

Nehmat is Head of Global Government Relations for the Climate Group’s Under2 Coalition Secretariat. For more than ten years, she has worked with key government and private sector stakeholders on accelerating climate action in India and across the world through evidence-based analysis, expertise and stakeholder engagement. She has worked on a wide range of issues including energy efficiency, clean energy, energy access, clean transportation, international climate policy, air quality and climate resilience. Nehmat has a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Delhi and a Master of Development Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Kennedy Liti Mbeva

Kennedy is currently a PhD candidate at the School of Social and Political Sciences, and the Climate and Energy College, University of Melbourne. He is also the Co-Convenor of the African Research & Impact Network (ARIN). Kennedy’s research examines the role of trade policy in global climate governance. Kennedy has previously worked in public policy research and served in international climate diplomacy.

Virginia Vilariño

Degree in Environmental Sciences, with Specialization in Chemical Sciences and Environment, Specialization in Policies and Instruments of Environmental Management and Master in Project Evaluation. She is Climate and Energy Manager at the Business Council for Sustainable Development in Argentina (CEADS). CEADS is the local chapter of the WBCSD, a global, CEO-led organization of over 200 leading businesses working together to accelerate the transition to a sustainable world. Since 2004, she has been leading programs and initiatives to promote climate action in the business sector, both individually and collaboratively among sectors and actors, through business-led solutions across renewable energy, circular economy, sustainable food system, natural climate solutions and SDGs. Most recently, her work is focused on promoting carbon disclosure and science based targets among companies in the region, in alliance with CDP Latin America. Currently she is Lead Author of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) on Climate Change Mitigation and previously was Lead Author of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) and the Special Report on the Impacts of Global Warming of 1.5°C above Pre-industrial Levels. She is a member of the Climate Policy Working Group of the WBCSD. She participates in the expanded round-table of the National Climate Change Cabinet in Argentina, promoting business engagement in climate policy. She is a Member of the Community of Practice (CoP) on Private Sector Engagement in Climate Policy Processes in Latin America, facilitated by the EUROCLIMA+ Program, GIZ, the Regional Platform of Low Emission Resilient Development Strategies (LEDS LAC) and INCAE Business School. She acted as Expert Member of ISO Working group on GHG management in the value chain and been engaged in the development or pilot testing of GHG Protocol standards for agriculture and land sector. She also presents seminars and is a visiting lecturer at various academic institutions.

Peter Boyd

Peter Boyd is Lecturer at Yale School of the Environment and Resident Fellow at Center for Business and the Environment. Outside Yale, he is Founder & CEO of Time4Good, helping Leaders and their teams build purpose-driven paths to maximum impact. He also serves as an advisor to REDD.plus and Chair of ‘Sustainable Westport’ in his hometown of Connecticut. For over twenty years he has worked on, led and advised, high-growth organizations on purpose-driven leadership and the transition to net-zero and beyond. He was Launch Director and COO of Sir Richard Branson’s Carbon War Room; served as Chair of The Energy Efficiency Deployment Office for the UK Department of Energy & Climate Change; and led The B Team’s ‘Net-Zero by 2050’ initiative focused on business encouragement of an ambitious Paris Agreement at COP21. The Charity & Government experience followed twelve years at the Virgin Group (including CEO of Virgin Mobile South Africa), and his first job with McKinsey & Co.

Joana Setzer

Joana is an Assistant Professorial Research Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she leads the Climate Change Laws of the World project – the most comprehensive global resource on climate legislation and litigation. Joana was a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow. She holds a PhD and an MSc from the LSE, a Masters and a BA in Law from the University of Sao Paulo. Prior to moving to the UK, she worked as an environmental lawyer in Brazil. Joana regularly advises a range of international, governments and non-governmental organisations.

Marcelo Mena-Carrasco

Marcelo Mena is a scientist and professor turned activist and policymaker. He is the director of the Climate Action Center at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (PUCV). Previously he was the practice manager in climate research at the World Bank and the former vice minister and minister of the environment for Chile under President Bachelet from 2014 to 2018. He spearheaded multiple environmental initiatives such as taxes on new car sales and power generation based on local and global air pollution — the first of their kinds globally. He helped craft a landmark agreement to phase out coal power generation, create 45 thousand square kilometers of national parks, protect 1.3 million square kilometers of ocean and institute the first national plastic bag ban in the Americas. At the World Bank, Mena helped create the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action, which includes 62 member countries that represent 63 percent of global GDP and 39% of global emissions., and contributed to the Action Plan on Climate Change Adaption and Resilience and methodology on Paris Alignment. Mena earned his PhD in environmental engineering, focusing his research on estimating the externalities of biofuels, power generation, transportation and residential heating. He used his research to advocate for renewable energy and push for more stringent regulations to stop dirty coal power generation in Chile. In his career, he has received awards from UNEP, National Geographic, Oceans Unite, NASA and EPA as well as fellowships from MIT and the Fulbright Commission.

Emma Watson

Emma is Head of Standards at the Science Based Targets initiative. Emma oversees the Standards Team that develops and maintains SBTi’s cross-sector standards. This includes near-term science-based targets, the Corporate Net-Zero Standard, and the emerging Net-Zero for Financial Institutions and Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) Standards. Emma led the development of the Corporate Net-Zero Standard – the first standard for setting corporate net-zero targets in line with climate science.

Prior to joining the SBTi, Emma was the lead for science-based targets at Accenture’s Carbon Intelligence – a service which she developed and brought to market.  Emma has extensive knowledge of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Standards and co-authored the UK Green Building Council’s Guide to Scope 3 Reporting in Commercial Real Estate.

Emma has an MSc in Carbon Management and BSc with Honours in Environmental Science, both from the University of Edinburgh and is based in London.

Dr Yixian Sun

Yixian is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in International Development at the University of Bath. His research explains the changing role of China in global environmental and climate governance, including sustainability transitions within China as well as sustainability impacts of China’s overseas engagement. Prior to moving to Bath, he worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Yixian holds a Ph.D. and a Master in Political Science from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva, a B.A. from Nanjing University. He is the author of Certifying China: The Rise and Limits of Transnational Sustainability Governance in Emerging Economies (The MIT Press 2022) and has published his work in leading scientific journals on environmental policy and politics including Global Environmental Change, Global Environmental Politics, and Ecological Economics.

Dr Lisa Benjamin

Lisa Benjamin is an Assistant Professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland Oregon. Her research includes climate impacts and actions of non-state actors, including companies and institutional investors, with a focus on energy companies. Her doctoral studies focused on carbon major companies, corporate and energy law and climate change, and is the basis for her monograph with Cambridge University Press Companies and Climate Change: Theory and Law in the United Kingdom (April 2021). She is currently a member of the Compliance Committee (Facilitative Branch) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, nominated by GRULAC states, and a Director of the Northwest Environmental Defense Center.

Lisa received her B.A. from McGill University, her LL.B. from University College London, her LL.M. from University of London and her PhD from the University of Leicester. In 2018 she was a postdoctoral Global Leaders Fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University, and 2019 she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University in Canada. Prior to academia, she was in private practice for eight years, as an associate in the commercial department of CMS Cameron McKenna in London (now CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP), and was a legal advisor to The Bahamian Government in the Paris Agreement negotiations.

Takeshi Kuramochi

Takeshi Kuramochi is a senior climate policy research at NewClimate Institute. With more than 15 years of research experience, he leads projects analysing greenhouse emission scenarios for major emitting economies as well as subnational and non-state actors. Takeshi has published more than thirty peer-reviewed articles and numerous other research reports. Since 2016, Takeshi contributes to the annual UNEP Emissions Gap Reports as a lead author on the chapter assessing G20 countries’ progress on emission reductions. Externally, Takeshi serves as a member of Science Base Targets initiative’s Scientific Advisory Group.

Prior to NewClimate, Takeshi worked as a senior climate policy researcher at the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) in Japan, where he carried out extensive research on Japan’s climate and energy policies as well as on the international negotiations for the post-2020 climate regime. Between 2006 and 2011 Takeshi worked as a researcher on carbon capture and storage technologies at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University (the Netherlands), where he is currently a visiting researcher.

Takeshi holds M.Sc. (environmental sciences) and Ph.D. (energy system analysis) degrees from Utrecht University, and a B.Eng. degree in chemical engineering and biotechnology from the University of Tokyo, Japan. A full list of his publications can be found on Google Scholar.

Joshua Amponsem

Joshua Amponsem is a Ghanaian climate activist and the Climate Lead at the Office of the UN Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth. He has over 8 years of experience working with young people focuses on Climate Change, Disaster Risk, and Resilience Building. He is the lead author of the first-ever background paper on youth and climate change adaptation which provided a pathway for youth engagement in global adaptation efforts. He founded Green Africa Youth Organization (GAYO), serve as a member of the Global Council on Enabling Youth Action for SDG 7, and has been an Adaptation Fellow at the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA). Joshua served as Business Development Manager to Challenges Group and provided business growth services to SMEs in the green sector – waste management, renewable energy and agriculture. He initiated locally-led projects like the Water for Adaptation and Sustainable Communities Project in sub-Saharan Africa and is championing the establishment of Youth Climate Councils across the Global South.

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Kate Levick

Kate Levick leads E3G’s activities on Sustainable Finance, working with a wide range of public and private finance sector stakeholders to support ambitious finance and climate policy outcomes.

Prior to joining E3G Kate spent a decade as Global Director for Policy Engagement at CDP, and UK government’s Office of Climate Change and spent several years working for BP Plc in a variety of commercial and environmental roles. Kate chairs the Policy workstream of the UK’s Green Technical Advisory Group, and is a member of the Advisory Panel to the Glasgow Finance Alliance for Net Zero. She co-leads the Secretariat for the UK’s Transition Plan Taskforce.

Mariana Nicolletti 

Mariana is a Senior Research Manager at C40 Cities, where she leads climate mitigation research projects related to clean energy transition, building retrofits and 15-minute Cities. Prior to working with C40, she served as Regional Manager for Low Carbon and Resilience at ICLEI South America and, before, she worked for ten years leading mitigation and adaptation projects in applied research at the Center for Sustainability Studies of the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGVces) in collaboration with national and local governments, as well as large companies and civil society in Brazil. She has also coordinated programs on water management, nature-based solutions and sustainable value chains. A cross-cutting theme that Mariana has been researching and embedding in projects and actions is climate justice; it was a central focus in her PhD research on climate change adaptation as transformational policies in cities. She holds a PhD in Public Administration and Government from FGV EAESP and Robert Gordon University, and a Master of Social Psychology from the University of São Paulo.

Dr Nate Aden

Nate Aden leads the Science Based Targets initiative’s work with financial institutions. He has been with SBTi since 2015 and over the years has contributed to the technical foundations of the initiative, including previously leading the chemicals sector work. In addition to SBTi, Nate is a Senior Fellow with the World Resources Institute’s Climate Program.

Nate has more than 20 years of experience working on industry, trade, energy, and climate in Asia, the U.S., and Europe. He has authored or co-authored dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles and reports, including “Technologies and policies to decarbonize global industry: Review and assessment of mitigation drivers through 2070“. He works with financial institutions, industry associations, and other stakeholders to help them set Science-Based Targets for GHG emissions reductions. His research on country low-carbon transformation has been written up in the New York Times and he is a frequent speaker at industry and academic conferences.

Nate holds a PhD from the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley, a master’s degree from Stanford University, and a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University. In his free time, Nate enjoys rock climbing, biking, and swimming in lakes.

Marcela Jaramillo

Marcela Jaramillo is a Senior Associate in the 2050 Pathways Platform. She leads the Platform’s strategic engagement with development banks, building collaborative work to support countries in developing and delivering their long-term climate strategies.

Prior to joining the 2050 Pathways Platform, Marcela was at the Interamerican Development Bank, where she worked with governments in the design of net zero strategies and alignment of public finances to climate goals, including through the delivery of the bank’s first decarbonization policy-based loan and technical assistance on public investment planning, fiscal policy, public budgeting and financing strategies. Marcela also worked at London-based think tank E3G in the Climate Finance and Diplomacy programmes on the role of finance within the UNFCCC and national financing strategies at the country level. She has multiple publications on net zero development planning and approaches to finance the transition.

Marcela is also co-chair of the Low Emissions Development Strategies (LEDS) Platform for Latin America and the Caribbean.