SEPTEMBER 25, 2024 | 11:00-17:30

RECEPTION 17:30 - 19:30

Elsie Rooftop
1412 Broadway (at 39th), 24th floor
New York

Exploring perspectives and pathways towards a just, timely and equitable transition away from fossil fuels.

Despite the COP 28 decision to transition away from fossil fuels, oil and gas projects continue to grow, yet more are in development, and there is no plan for how to manage the decline of the fossil fuel sector.

Again and again, the question of why we must urgently phase out fossil fuels has been asked and tragically answered. The true costs of oil, gas, and coal are far too great, measured not only in greenhouse gas emissions, but in impacts on workers, our neighbors, our communities, our health, our lives, and our futures.

This conference will address questions including:

  • What are the technical, political, social, and economic barriers to a just and equitable managed decline of fossil fuel use and production?

  • What policies could state and national governments enact or repeal to remove or overcome these barriers?

  • What processes might the international community need to create to resolve these dilemmas and to foster the courage and cooperation necessary to truly enable a global phase out of fossil fuels?

Speakers include

  • Catherine McKenna is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Climate and Nature Solutions. She is Canada's former Minister of Environment and Climate Change as well as Minister of Infrastructure. She is Chair of the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Expert Group on Net-Zero Commitments of Non-State Entities which released its Integrity Matters report at COP 27 setting out criteria for net zero commitments of business, financial institutions, cities and regions. She founded Women Leading on Climate and is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Columbia Climate School and a Visiting Professor in Practice at the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics. She is an advisor to the Climate Data Steering Committee for the Macron/Bloomberg Net Zero Data Public Utility, Singapore's International Advisory Panel for Carbon Credits, the Taskforce on Net Zero Policy, the LSE Just Transition Finance Lab, as well as to the University of Ottawa's Information Integrity Lab. She is a graduate of the University of Toronto, the London School of Economics and McGill Law School and is called to the Bars of Ontario and New York.  She advises many private sector boards. She is a frequent speaker on climate action, net zero leadership and women empowerment.

  • Linda Solomon Wood founded Canada's National Observer (CNO) as part of Observer Media Group with the mission of putting climate change front and centre in Canada. CNO's team of climate experts and journalists have done just that, highlighting the economic, human rights and public health impacts of global warming, while celebrating innovation and solutions. Under her guidance, Observer Media Group has won more than 60 awards and honors for investigations, analysis and documentary storytelling. Over the last ten years, since it was founded, CNO has had an extraordinary impact on furthering awareness about the opportunities for building well-being and a healthier future in Canada and the race against climate change.

  • Dr. Lujain Alqodmani, a global health and medical professional, currently holds the prestigious position of President at the World Medical Association (WMA) for the term 2023-2024. Renowned for her leadership, she spearheads the WMA's initiatives, advocating for global healthcare excellence and ethical medical practices worldwide. Alongside her role as WMA President, Lujain serves as the Director of Global Action and Project Portfolio at EAT, leveraging her expertise to steer the implementation of strategic goals and oversee impactful projects at EAT. Previously, Dr. Alqodmani contributed significantly to various health sectors. Her experiences range from serving as an emergency physician in Kuwait to holding vital roles such as the co-chair of the WMA Environment Caucus and the International Relations Director at Kuwait Medical Association. Moreover, she held influential positions at Women in Global Health and the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations (IFMSA), where she represented the Eastern Mediterranean Region and led crucial internal affairs portfolios. With a medical degree from Kuwait University and a Master's in international healthcare management, economics, and policy from SDA Bocconi, Lujain Alqodmani remains dedicated to elevating healthcare standards worldwide.

  • Director of Earthlife Africa JHB, an environmental justice activist anti-nuclear organisation. Makoma is a strong campaigner for a just and fair society. Her commitment to climate justice in South Africa has led civil society to win the first South African climate change legal court case against the government and the reversal of the nuclear deal by the South African and the Russian government.

    For her efforts she received the WWF Living Awards Honourable Mention in 2017, the Goldman Environmental Prize for Africa in 2018 and the Nick Steel Memorial: Environmentalist of the Year 2018 amongst other accolades.

  • María Fernanda Espinosa is a politician, diplomat and human rights advocate with more than 30 years of professional experience in the academy, non-governmental and international organizations, and leadership positions within the Government of Ecuador. She is regarded as an expert in international affairs and the United Nations, defense and security, sustainable development, the environment, climate change, gender equality, and indigenous peoples’ rights.

    She currently serves as President of Cities Alliance and is the Executive Director of Global Women Leaders for Change and Inclusion. She also serves as a member of leading international organizations including the International Crisis Group, the UN Alliance of Civilizations, and the World Commission on the Economics of Water.

    María Fernanda was an advisor on biodiversity and indigenous peoples’ policy and later regional director for South America of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, IUCN. She served as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Defense, Minister of Cultural and Natural Heritage and was the first female ambassador and permanent representative of Ecuador to the United Nations in New York. She was also a permanent representative to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva. Recently, she served as President of the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly.

  • Mitzi Jonelle Tan is a full-time climate justice activist based in Metro Manila, Philippines. She is the convenor and international spokesperson of Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines (YACAP) and is on the steering committee of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Youth Climate Justice Fund. She is also an organizer with FFF International and FFF MAPA Most Affected Peoples and Areas) making sure that voices from the Global South are heard, amplified, and given space. A strong voice on anti-imperialism, anti-colonization, and the intersectionality of the climate crisis, she is committed to systemic change and collectively building a world that prioritizes people and the planet, through organizing, global solidarity, and collective action.

  • Mohamed Adow is the Founder and Director of Power Shift Africa, which he formed in 2018 to mobilize climate action in Africa and shift climate and energy policies to zero carbon. 

    He is an international climate policy expert and ardent advocate for the people of developing nations - who are disproportionately affected by climate change but play almost no role in causing it.

    Prior to launching Power Shift Africa, Mohamed led Christian Aid’s global climate policy and advocacy work for over a decade, specializing in developing countries’ issues, and supporting the organization’s climate policy and advocacy work in Africa, Europe and at the UN climate negotiations.

    While with Christian Aid, he led the creation of Pan-Africa Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), which is made up of over 1,000 organizations across 48 countries. He is also an advisor to the Climate Vulnerable Forum and a former Board Chair of Climate Action Network International.

  • Nikki Reisch (she/her) is the Director of the Climate & Energy Program at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), where she works at the intersection of human rights and the environment, overseeing legal and policy advocacy, research and analysis on climate change, its causes, consequences, and responses to it. She has over 20 years’ experience in the fields of environmental justice, corporate accountability, and human rights, with an emphasis on the impacts of natural resource extraction, investment law, and climate change. In her current role, she focuses on holding states, corporations, and financial institutions accountable for climate harm and climate inaction; shifting public and private finance away from fossil fuels; halting oil and gas expansion and accelerating fossil fuel phaseout; and centering human rights in climate policy and governance. Nikki has appeared before domestic and international courts, UN treaty bodies and the accountability mechanisms of international financial institutions, and has co-authored numerous amicus briefs in public interest cases.

    Before joining CIEL, she was the Legal Director at NYU’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and a clinical instructor in human rights law and advocacy. She previously held roles at the Rainforest Foundation UK and as the Africa Program Coordinator at the Bank Information Center. She earned a BA in Ethics, Politics and Economics from Yale University and a JD from NYU School of Law, and served as a law clerk in the US Courts of Appeals for the Ninth and Second Circuits.

  • Ozzi Warwick is the Chief Education and Research Officer of the Oilfields Workers’ Trade (OWTU), with  overall responsibility for the OWTU’s educational and research activities both internal to the Union and external. He was also elected to the National Executive as an Executive Trustee and then elected as the Executive Treasurer. He is also the General Secretary of a national trade union federation, the Joint Trade Union Movement of Trinidad and Tobago as well as General Secretary of the Movement for Social Justice. He was also elected as a member of the Financial Control Committee and the Presidential Council of the World Federation of Trade Union (WFTU). Ozzi has been actively working with TUED and the GLU on issues of progressive just transition and therefore advocating for the public pathway approach to the just transition.

  • Writer, Historian, and  Activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of twenty books on Feminism, Western and Indigenous History, Popular Power, Social Change and Insurrection, Wandering and Walking, Hope and Disaster, Most recently the Mother of All Questions.

  • Sharon Lavigne is an environmental justice activist in Louisiana focused on combating petrochemical complexes in Cancer Alley. Lavigne worked as a special education teacher until deciding to dedicate herself full-time to working for environmental justice in her community. In October 2018, she founded RISE St. James, a faith-based, grassroots environmental organization that started with a community meeting in her living room. Now, she manages a small staff and some 20 volunteers. She is the 2022 recipient of the Laetare Medal, the highest honor for American Catholics, and a 2021 recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize.

    Lavigne is the daughter of civil rights activists and has lived in the St. James Parish, Louisiana community her whole life. As a little girl, her family lived off the land—with gardens, cattle, pigs, and chickens—and her grandfather caught fish and shrimp in the Mississippi River.

  • Sivan Kartha is the Equitable Transitions Program Director at SEI US.

    His research and publications for the past 25 years have dealt with policy strategies for addressing climate change, focusing on equity and effectiveness in the design of an international climate regime. He has also worked on mitigation scenarios, market mechanisms for climate actions, and the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of biomass energy. 

    He is co-director of the Climate Equity Reference Project, a research and outreach effort in partnership with civil society organizations on the political and ethical dimensions of equitably sharing the effort of an ambitious global response to climate change.  

    His work has enabled him to advise and collaborate with diverse organizations, including the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), various UN and World Bank programmes, numerous government policy-making bodies and agencies, foundations and civil society organizations throughout the developing and industrialized world. 

    He served as a Coordinating Lead Author in the preparation of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released in 2014, co-leading the chapter on Equity and Sustainable Development. 

    He received his PhD in theoretical physics from Cornell University in 1993. 

  • Susana Muhamad González is a Colombian politician, environmentalist and political scientist of Palestinian descent, belonging to the Colombia Humana party. Since 7 August 2022, she has held the post of Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development of Colombia.

    According to Reuters, she is one of the 25 pioneering women in the world who are currently leading the fight against the climate crisis. She was Secretary of Environment and Secretary General of the Mayor's Office of Bogotá. In 2019 she was elected city councillor, a position she will hold until the first half of 2022.

    Muhamad holds a degree in Political Science from the University of the Andes (2002) and a Master's degree in Sustainable Development Management and Planning from the
    University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. She was a sustainable development consultant for Shell Global Solutions International in The Hague, The Netherlands.
    In 2021, Muhamad was elected as vice-president of the national coordination board of the Colombia Humana party, after this political movement officially received its legal
    status.

    Muhamad is a nationally, regionally and internationally recognised environmentalist and her work focuses on developing actions to consolidate Colombia as a global power for life, complying with international agreements on climate change and biodiversity loss, working for the protection of environmental defenders and combating deforestation in the Amazon Arc.

  • Ali Mohamed is the Climate Change Envoy of the Republic of Kenya, advising the President of Kenya on matters related to climate change policy and action, and represents Kenya in regional and international forums and negotiations on climate change.

    He has participated in several initiatives and projects aimed at enhancing knowledge sharing, capacity building and technical assistance among countries of the Global South. He has also been a vocal advocate for strengthening the role of South-South cooperation in achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on climate change.

  • Akshat Rathi is a London-based senior reporter for Bloomberg News. His first book Climate Capitalism has been named one of the best books of the year by The Times and The Economic Times. He has also edited a book of essays from young climate leaders.

    Akshat has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Oxford, and a BTech in chemical engineering from the Institute of Chemical Technology in Mumbai. You can sign up to his weekly Zero newsletter, subscribe to his weekly Zero podcast, and follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

    Previously, Akshat was a senior reporter at Quartz and a science editor at The Conversation. His work has been cited widely, including in New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and The Guardian. He has won numerous awards for his journalism including the 2024 Kalinga Literary Festival award for Best Business Book, and the Overseas Press Club 2023 Whitman Bassow Award for best reporting on international environmental issues.

    Akshat has won fellowships from Columbia University and City University of New York to enhance his reporting work. He has also served on the advisory panel of the 2019 Cairncross Review on the sustainability of high-quality journalism in the UK.

  • Climate Director at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil, she leads the team of Brazilian negotiators in the multilateral negotiations on climate change. As a career diplomat, she was posted in Brazil's missions in Brussels and Montevideo and in the embassies in London, Rabat and Mexico City. Ambassador Chagas has experience in regional and multilateral trade negotiations, promoting Brazilian exports and investments abroad, public policies on sustainable development and combating climate change.

Agenda

TimeEvent
10:30
11:00 		REGISTRATION
11:00
11:20		Welcome & Introductions
Stephen Kretzmann | the Commission Project
11:20
11:40
Towards a Fossil Fuel Free Future
Diplomatic perspectives on moving forward
Ana Toni | National Secretary for Climate Change (Brazil)
Mohammad Adow
11:40
12:05		___What’s stopping us from moving forward?
A taxonomy of barriers inhibiting a global managed decline of fossil fuels.
Sivan Kartha | Stockholm Environment Institute
12:05
12:35		Perspectives from the Front Line
Makoma Lekalakala (South Africa)
Sharon Lavigne | RiseSt. James (Louisiana, USA)
12:35
13:00		UN Perspectives
Maria Fernanda Espinosa | former President of the United Nations General Assembly
13:00
14:00		LUNCH
14:00
14:15		Indigenous Testimonial
Artistic Representations from the South Pacific - This is Our Home
14:15
15:10		Barriers and Bridges
What are the main legal, financial and political challenges and pathways to the fossil fuel phase out?
Fadhel Kaboub | Denison University
Nikki Resich | Center for International Environmental Law
Ozzi Warwick | General Secretary of the Joint Trade Union Movement of Trinidad and Tobago
Lujain Al-Qodmani | President, World Medical Association
Moderated by Dipti Bhatnagar | the Commission Project
15:10
15:40		What's Stopping Us?
How to create a plan for a managed decline of oil, gas and coal?
Catherine McKenna | Climate and Nature Solutions (Canada)
Armchair dialogue with Linda Solomon | National Observer
15:40
16:30
Government Perspectives on Political and Economic Challenges of Stopping Fossil Expansion
Breaking the hold of current international processes
Minister Susana Muhamad | Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development (Colombia)
Ambassador Liliam Chagas | Director for Climate, Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Brazil)
In conversation with Akshat Rathi | Bloomberg News
16:30
17:15		The Way Forward
How to build the political space for leaders to do the right thing?
17:15
17:30		CLOSING
17:30
19:30		RECEPTION
With special guests Rebecca Solnit and Mitzi Jonelle Tan

About us

This conference is hosted by the Commission Project which is a new initiative to launch a World Commission on Fossil Fuel Phase Out.

To learn more about the ideas behind the commission and how it might unfold, click below to view the current Terms of Reference. Note that this project is in development and is actively seeking new partnerships and perspectives.

Bridges and Barriers to Fossil Fuel Phase Out is co-hosted by an evolving group including: The Ford Foundation, Asia Pacific Movement on Debt & Development, Carbon Tracker Initiative, Indigenous Climate Action, Center for International Environmental Law, Climate & Community Project, Global Climate & Health Alliance, #GWL Voices, Oak Foundation, Power Shift Africa, Oil Change International, Parliamentarians for Fossil-Free Future, GreenFaith, The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, Wallace Global Fund, Climate Action Network-International, New York Community Trust and The Commission Project.

Venue

Elsie Rooftop, 1412 Broadway (at 39th), 24th floor, New York