Economics of climate

This event will showcase the recent work of the COP30 Action Agenda on transition away from fossil fuels, forests, carbon markets and climate coalitions.

Convened by José Scheinkman of Columbia University as part of COP30 under the leadership of COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago, this work has brought together leading economic perspectives on climate action. The event will also mark the formal launch of the Economics of Climate (ECO), a platform that will carry this work forward, convened jointly by researchers from LSE, Columbia University, PUC Rio, University of Chicago, Yale University and MIT, with support from the LSE Global School of Sustainability and the International Growth Centre.

Meet our speakers and chair

Juliano Assunção is the Executive Director of CPI/PUC-Rio and Professor in the Department of Economics at PUC-Rio. Since 2011, he has been working at CPI/PUC-Rio, contributing to improving climate policies in Brazil through evidence-based analyses and direct engagement with policymakers and civil society. Juliano also coordinates the Amazon 30 project, which aims to leverage a sustainable development plan for the Brazilian Amazon by 2030. Juliano is also supporting the COP30 Presidency with the drafting of the Roadmap to Halt and Reverse Deforestation and Forest Degradation by 2030.

Robin Burgess is Professor of Economics at LSE, where he is also co-Founder and Director of the International Growth Centre (IGC) and Director of the Economics of Environment and Energy (EEE) Research Programme. He is co-Director, of the Coase Project on the Economics of Climate, Energy and Environment. His research spans environmental economics, development economics and political economy, and he has published on topics including natural disasters, land reform, industrial policy, taxation and poverty. He has held visiting positions at MIT, Harvard University, the National Bureau of Economic Research and UC Berkeley, and is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Econometric Society. He is currently leading research across Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Myanmar, Pakistan, South Korea and Uganda. Robin has serves on the COP30 President’s Council on Economics, Finance, and Climate.

André Aranha Corrêa do Lago is the President of COP30. As a career diplomat, he has worked across international organizations, trade promotion, protocol and energy, and served as adviser at the Office of the President between 1991 and 1992, contributing to the organization of the Earth Summit (Rio-92). He served as Director of the Energy Department (2008-2011) and of the Environment Department (2011-2013) at the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was Brazil's chief negotiator for climate change and for the Rio+20 Conference. He has served as Brazilian Ambassador to Japan (2013-2018) and to India (2018-2023), and from March 2023 to January 2025 as Secretary for Climate, Energy, and Environment at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is the author of several books and articles on sustainable development and climate change.

Rohini Pande is the Henry J. Heinz II Professor of Economics and Director of the Economic Growth Center at Yale University, where she also serves as Faculty Director of Inclusion Economics. Her research focuses on how institutions shape power relationships and patterns of economic, political and environmental advantage in low- and middle-income countries, with a particular interest in the role of public policy in providing the poor and disadvantaged with political and economic power. She has published widely on governance, political economy and environmental policy, and her work has influenced policy across South Asia and globally. Pande is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the Econometric Society and has received the 2018 Carolyn Shaw Bell Award from the American Economic Association and the 2022 Infosys Prize in Social Sciences. She received her PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics. Rohini serves on the COP30 President’s Council on Economics, Finance, and Climate.

José A. Scheinkman is the Charles and Lynn Zhang Professor of Economics at Columbia University and Theodore A. Wells '29 Professor of Economics (emeritus) at Princeton University, and a Research Associate at the NBER. Previously, he was the Alvin H. Baum Distinguished Service Professor and Chairman of the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago, and Vice President in the Financial Strategies Group of Goldman Sachs. His research spans financial economics and climate finance, with a particular focus on speculation in financial markets and the effects of liquidity on financial fragility. Scheinkman is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Econometric Society and a Corresponding Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. He was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in 2007 and the CME-MSRI Prize in Innovative Quantitative Applications in 2014. Jose convened and chaired the COP30 President's Council on Economics, Finance, and Climate.

Catherine Wolfram is the William Barton Rogers Professor in Energy and Professor of Applied Economics at MIT Sloan School of Management, where she leads the Global Climate Policy Project, a joint initiative between Harvard and MIT dedicated to advancing innovations in global climate policies and institutions. Previously, she served as the Cora Jane Flood Professor of Business Administration at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and from March 2021 to October 2022 as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Climate and Energy Economics at the US Treasury. Her research focuses on the economics of energy markets, including rural electrification, energy efficiency, environmental regulation, and the impact of privatisation and market restructuring in the US and UK. She is currently working on projects at the intersection of climate, energy and trade, including carbon border adjustment mechanisms and oil market sanctions. Wolfram was previously Program Director of the NBER Environment and Energy Economics Program and an Assistant Professor of Economics at Harvard. Catherine serves on the COP30 President's Council on Economics, Finance, and Climate, chairing a working group on climate coalitions

Jonathan Pershing is the Inaugural Dean of the LSE Global School of Sustainability and Professor in Practice. He has extensive experience at the highest levels of US climate policy and has played a key role in creating international climate agreements. His public sector experience includes serving as Special Envoy for Climate Change at the US Department of State during the Obama Administration, Senior Climate Advisor to the US Secretary of Energy, and Principal Deputy Director of the Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis at the Department of Energy. Beyond government, he directed the climate, energy and pollution program at the World Resources Institute, led the environment division at the International Energy Agency in Paris, and spent nearly a decade as science advisor and deputy director of the State Department's Office of Global Change. From 2017 to 2021 and 2022 to 2025, he served as Program Director for Environment at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, leading a team focused on global climate change and conservation in the North American West.

More about this event

This event is hosted by: The Economics of Environment and Energy (EEE) Programme which gathers a dynamic group of researchers working on the interaction between human activity and the natural environment. EEE's objective is to bring these concerns into mainstream economics and to create the policy-relevant research needed to address environmental and energy challenges at scale and speed; The Global School of Sustainability (GSoS), brings together the wealth of social science expertise at LSE concerned with the critical questions for a sustainable future; and The International Growth Centre (IGC) is a global research centre with a network of world-leading researchers, country teams across Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East, and a set of global policy initiatives that works with policymakers in developing countries to promote inclusive and sustainable growth through cutting-edge and responsive research.

This event is part of the London Climate Action Week 2026.

Hashtag for this event: #ClimateActionWeek

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