Climate Change Policy for Developing Countries, in conversation with Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia - video
This event focuses on the shifts required in the trajectories emerging economies take as they navigate the changing and challenging terrain of climate finance. With a solutions-focused approach that leverages energy system reforms and finance mobilisation, the event unpacks how the scale of change sought by the global community can be achieved. Dr Ahluwalia elaborates on the impact that climate change has had on country GDPs and productivity, and how commitments made at COP26/COP27 provide an opportunity to begin exploring how responsibility for reducing carbon emissions can be shared amongst developed and developing countries: What does it look like to take differential responsibility? Who is financing this Net Zero/Just Transition across the world? How can developing countries best plan for critical negotiations and their own futures?
Speaker:
Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Economist and former Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission of India.
Chair:
Bob Ward, Policy and Communications Director at the Grantham Research Institute at LSE.
Event Panel:
Professor Nicholas Stern, IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, Co-Director of the India Observatory and Chair, Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics
Mike Hemsley, leads the analysis for the Energy Transitions Commission.
Danae Kyriakopoulou, Senior Policy Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute at LSE.
Additional Comments
Harinder Singh Kohli, Founding Director and Chief Executive of Emerging Markets Forum
Publication
Limited complementary copies will be available for in-person attendees of the recently published book “The World in 2060”, Dr Montek Singh will be basing the presentation on his chapter from the book.
Bios
Montek Singh Ahluwalia is an economist, civil servant and former Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Government of India. He is currently a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Economic and Social Policy, New Delhi. He has held several positions in the Indian Government and been a key figure in India’s economic reforms since the mid-1980s. He began his career at the World Bank and joined the Indian Ministry of Finance in 1979. He subsequently served as Special Secretary to the Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, as Commerce Secretary, Finance Secretary and as a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. In 2001, he was appointed the first Director of the IMF’s Independent Evaluation Office. He is a member of the Governing Board of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, New Delhi. He has authored several articles and his memoirs “Backstage: The story of India’s High Growth years” was published by Rupa publications in 2020. Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia graduated from Delhi University and has an MA and an MPhil in Economics from Oxford University.
Mike Hemsley leads the analysis for the Energy Transitions Commission, a diverse coalition of public, private, non-governmental and academic stakeholders aiming at accelerating energy transitions globally. He previously worked at the UK’s Committee on Climate Change – an independent advisor to the Government – where he led the CCC’s Carbon Budgets team, bringing together the CCC’s analysis on sectoral emissions and leading work on cross-cutting decarbonisation policy to recommend the UK’s Sixth Carbon Budget (2033-37).
Danae Kyriakopoulou is Senior Policy Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics where she leads the policy work on the intersections of climate change, international finance and economic development. From 2016 to 2021, she was the Chief Economist and Director of Research of the Official Monetary and Financial Institution Forum (OMFIF). As part of this, she set up the Sustainable Policy Institute and served as its Managing Director and Chair of its Advisory Council, of which she is now a member. She holds advisory roles in various industry sustainability initiatives and was honoured by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader in 2022.
Nicholas Stern is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, Co-Director of the India Observatory and Chair, Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics. He has held posts at other UK & overseas universities, and as Chief Economist at both the EBRD and the World Bank. He was Head, UK Government Economic Service 2003-2007, and produced the Stern Review on the economics of climate change. He was President of the Royal Economic Society (2018-2019). He was President of the British Academy (July 2013-2017) and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (June 2014). He was knighted for services to economics (2004), made a life peer (2007), and appointed Companion of Honour for services to economics, international relations and tackling climate change in 2017. He has published more than 15 books and 100 articles. Most recent books: How Lives Change: Palanpur, India and Development Economics (with Himanshu and Peter Lanjouw, OUP 2018). This is the third volume on Palanpur and the first two volumes (Palanpur: the economy of an India village (with C.J. Bliss) and Economic Development in Palanpur over five decades (with Peter Lanjouw), were republished in paperback by OUP 2018; and Standing Up for a Sustainable World: Voices of Change, Edward Elgar, 2020. He is a member of the High-Level Advisory Group on Sustainable and Inclusive Growth (HLAG).
Bob Ward is the Policy and Communications Director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics. In addition, he is the Deputy Chair of the London Climate Change Partnership and the Policy and Communications Director for the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy. Bob joined the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) from Risk Management Solutions, where he was Director of Public Policy. He also worked at the Royal Society, the UK national academy of science, for eight years, until October 2006. He has also worked as a freelance science writer and journalist. He is a fellow of the Geological Society, a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a fellow of the Energy Institute and a member of the American Geophysical Union. Bob is also a member of the board of the Association of British Science Writers and a member of the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Public Relations Association.