Welcome to our seminar about climate change and growing risks next Friday.
When: 09.00-15.45, 27th of September 2013
Where: The former second chamber of the Swedish Parliament, Riksdagen
Climate change is a global risk issue. In addition, we have now a situation where the
emissions are so big that the probability for extreme warming, 6°C or more, has reached such
high levels that we no longer can ignore this risk. Despite the seriousness of the issue, we have witnessed how it in media as well as among politicians and in business has been argued that the uncertainty, when it comes to exactly how
serious the risks of climate change are, has motivated that we shall wait for less uncertain data
from the scientists before we act. From a risk perspective this is an incorrect reasoning since
increased uncertainty regarding big threats leads to more forceful action – not less.
We want this meeting to be relatively small to enable a dynamic dialogue, and are happy to
see people with different competences and background participating. We therefore appreciate
if you when registering can note what particular interest you have regarding global risks.
To register (which is mandatory in order to be able to enter in the parliament), please
send an email to, latest 24/9: anmalan.riksdagen@mp.se
For questions about the project, the launch or the next steps, please contact:
Dennis Pamlin, Project Manager, Global Challenges Foundation dennis@globalchallenges.org
For questions about GLOBE, please contact: jens.holm@riksdagen.se
Global Risk and Opportunity Indicator
arrangeras i samarbete med GLOBE Sverige och MP
9.00 Welcome to the Swedish Parliament and the old second chamber of parliament.
Jens Holm, Vice-President of GLOBE Sweden, Member of Parliament & Åsa Romson, Member of parliament, Member of GLOBE Sweden
9.05 Welcome to the Global Risk Panel, launch of the Global Risk & Opportunity indicator and Introduction to Global Challenges Foundation
Margot Wallström, spokes person, Global Challenges Foundation
9.20 Welcome and comment
Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC (v)
9.30 Introduction to the Global Risk and Opportunity Indicator
Dennis Pamlin, Project Manager, Global Challenges Foundation
9.45 How the complexity of nature affects risks, climate change and beyond
Johan Rockström, Executive Director of Stockholm Resilience Centre
10.00 The current IPCC work, what’s included and what is not in the sensitivity numbers
Bill Hare, Founder and CEO of Climate Analytics
10.15 Assessing global threats and communicating to guide policy development.
Kennette Benedict, Executive director and publisher, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
10.30 Global high impact risks and the BASIC expert group PAN Jiahua, Professor of Economics and Director, Institute for Urban & Environmental Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (v)
10.35 Discussion + Q&A All
10.55 Break All
11.20 Global high impact risks and the financial sector
Paul Dickinson, Executive Chairman, CDP
11.35 Global high impact risks and reinsurance
David Bresch Director Sustainability & Political Risk Management Swiss Re (v)
11.50 Global high impact risks investment and banking
Nick Robins, Head of climate change centre of excellence at HSBC
12.05 Global high impact risks, the actuarial profession and policy implications
Nick Silver, founder and director of the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI)
12.20 Discussion + Q&A All
12.40 Lunch and informal discussions All
13.40 Global high impact climate risk and security policy
Tilman Brück, Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
13.55 Global Governance and global risk: the need for new thinking
David Held, Professor of Politics and International Relations at Durham University (v)
14.10 Discussion + Q&A All
14.30 Summary and thanks to those in the panel and in the audience that have to leave
Margot Wallström & Dennis Pamlin
14.45 Break All
15.00 What is next for global climate risks? Climate expert
15.20 The Stockholm Global Risk Declaration and next steps
Margot Wallström & Dennis Pamlin + All
15.45 End
Overview of speakers (alphabetical order)
Kennette Benedict, is the Executive Director and Publisher of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. She came to the Bulletin from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, where she directed the international peace and security program from 1992 to 2005. She also established and directed the foundation’s initiative in the former Soviet Union from 1992 to 2002. Before joining the foundation in 1987, she taught at Rutgers University (1980-1981) and at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (1981-1985). Benedict received her A.B. from Oberlin College and a PhD in political science from Stanford University. Her media appearances include interviews on ABC’s 20/20, CNN, CNN International, BBC, CBC, NPR, CTV, Voice of America, Fox News Channel, Agence Presse-France, and Al Jazeera. She has been quoted in USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, Village Voice, Los Angeles Times, and Congressional Quarterly, among others. She appears regularly on radio news and talk shows in the United States, Britain, and Australia.
David Bresch, heads the Sustainability & Political Risk Management unit at Swiss Re. A central role of the team is to guide Swiss Re’s commitment to provide ethical, environmentally and socially responsible financial services. For Swiss Re as a global risk taker, climate issues feature prominently on the agenda1. David Bresch has been a member of the official Swiss delegation to the UNFCCC COP15 (2009) in Copenhagen, COP16 (2010) in Cancun, COP17 (2011) in Durban and COP18 in Doha 2012. His previous roles at Swiss Re since 2000 include Head of University and Risk Research Relations and Head Atmospheric Perils Group. He served as Swiss Re’s chief architect for natural catastrophe risk assessment models and has been member of the deal teams for many innovative risk transfer transactions, like cat bonds and weather index solutions.
Tilman Brück, became the eighth Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in January 2013. Tilman Brück is a development economist who trained at Glasgow University and Oxford University. His research interests include the inter-relationship between peace, security and development (especially at the micro-level), the economics of post-war reconstruction, and the economics of terrorism and security policy, with country experiences in Angola, Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, Nicaragua, Mongolia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Uganda, and Ukraine. Tilman Brück also collects and analyses household-level surveys to study poverty and employment and how they relate to conflict. He is a co-founder and co-director of the Households in Conflict Network and a founding member of the Global Young Academy. He was previously a full professor of development economics at Humboldt-University of Berlin and a head of department at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW). Tilman Brück has also worked as an adviser and consultant for numerous governments and international organizations.
Paul Dickinson, is the Executive Chairman of CDP. He founded CDP in 2000 having previously founded and developed Rufus Leonard Corporate Communications and, more recently, EyeNetwork, the largest videoconference service in Europe. Member of the Environmental Research Group of the UK Faculty and Institute of Actuaries. Author of various publications including ’Beautiful Corporations’.
Bill Hare, is a Climate Scientist with twenty-five years experience in the science, impacts and policy responses to climate change and stratospheric ozone depletion. He is a founder and CEO of Climate Analytics, a non profit company based in Berlin, which was established in 2008 to synthesize and advance scientific knowledge in the area of climate change and provide state-of-the-art solutions to global and national climate change policy challenges. He is a visiting scientist in the Earth System Analysis – Research Domain I at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research since 2002. Areas of scientific and policy expertise include the science and impacts of climate change, international climate policy, including the architecture of the international climate regime; climate system response to greenhouse gas forcing and the assessment of emission pathways. Since 2008 the main focus of his scientific work has been on developing the PRIMAP (Potsdam Real-time Integrated Model for Assessment of emission Paths) model. At present he is directing the SURVIVE Project which is providing scientific, policy, analytical and strategic support, capacity building and advice for delegations from the small island states (SIDS) and the least developed countries (LDCs) in the international climate negotiations. He was a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
David Held, is Master of University College, Durham and Professor of Politics and International Relations at Durham University. Among his most recent publications are Gridlock:Why Global Cooperation is Failing when We Need It Most (2013), Cosmopolitanism: Ideals and Realities (2010), Globalisation/Anti-Globalisation (2007), Models of Democracy (2006), Global Covenant (2004), Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture (1999), and Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance (1995). His main research interests include the study of globalisation, changing forms of democracy and the prospects of regional and global governance. He is a Director of Polity Press, which he co-founded in 1984, and General Editor of Global Policy .
Dennis Pamlin, Project Manager, Global Challenges Foundation, is an entrepreneur and founder of 21st Century Frontiers. He works with companies, governments and NGOs as a strategic economic, technology and innovation advisor. His background is in engineering, industrial economy and marketing. Mr Pamlin worked as Global Policy Advisor for WWF from 1999 to 2009. During his tenure, Pamlin initiated WWFs Trade and Investment Programme work in the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and led the work with companies (especially high-tech companies such as ICT) as solution providers. Pamlin is currently an independent consultant as well as Director for the Low Carbon Leaders Project under the UN Global Compact and is a Senior Associate at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Current work includes work to establish a web platform to promote transformative solutions, creating the first portal that will allow public procurement to identify transformative solutions. Pamlin is also exploring how new ideas can be financed through web-tools/apps and the cultural tensions between the “west” and the re-emerging economies (with focus on China and India).
PAN Jiahua, is currently director-general, Institute for Urban & Environmental Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), and professor of economics at CASS Graduate School. Received his PhD at Cambridge University in 1992. Areas of interest include economics of sustainable development, energy and climate policy, world economy and environmental and natural resource economics. Worked for the UNDP Beijing Office as an advisor on environment and development; Lead author of the IPCC Working Group III 3rd and 4th Assessment Report on Mitigation; Member of China National Expert Panel on Climate Change; Member of National Foreign Policy Advisory Group; Advisor to the Ministry of Environment Protection. Vice president of the Chinese Society of Ecological Economists, vice president of Chinese Energy Association. Co-editor of Climate Change 2007: mitigation published by Cambridge University Press and author of over 300 papers, articles and books in both English and Chinese.
Nick Robins, is Head of the Climate Change Centre of Excellence at HSBC in London. Launched in October 2007, the Centre’s mission is to analyse the commercial consequences of climate change for the HSBC Group and its clients. Since joining Nick has co-authored research on strategic climate investment themes (Gathering Momentum, Sept 2008), climate risk (Oil & Carbon, Sept 2008), climate change and fiscal stimulus (Green Rebound, Jan 2009 & A Climate of Recovery, Feb 2009), as well as emerging market potential (A spectrum of choices, Nov 2008). Since January 2009 Nick co-chairs the Climate Change Working Group of the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI). He is a member of the UK Government’s Sustainable Development Panel, BT’s CSR Leadership Panel and GE’s Stakeholder Review Panel. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and an Associate Member of the Securities and Investment Institute. He has a BA (First Class) in History from Cambridge University and a MSc (with Distinction) in International Relations from the London School of Economics.
Johan Rockström, is the Executive Director of Stockholm Resilience Centre, and a Professor in Environmental Science at Stockholm University, with emphasis on water resources and global sustainability. He was director of the Stockholm Environment Institute in 2004–2012. Johan is an internationally recognized scientist with more than 15 years’ experience of research on agriculture, water resources and ecosystem services, and over 100 research publications in fields such as global environmental change, resilience, agriculture, global water resources, and food production. He has served as advisor to several international organizations, governments, and the European Union, and is a frequent key-note speaker at both the international research arena and among policy makers. Johan was in 2013 for the second consecutive year appointed most influential person in Sweden within the environmental field. His most recent books are The Human Quest (with Mattias Klum) and Bankrupting Nature (with Anders Wijkman).
Nick Silver, founder and director of the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI), which is working with governments and MLIs to develop policies that will facilitate institutional investment at scale in the low carbon economy. Nick is co-ordinating the Local Authority Energy Efficiency Partnership (LEEP) which is working with municipalities to bring in large scale investment into domestic energy efficiency. Until recently Nick was Chairman of the Resource and Environment Group of the UK actuarial profession. Nick is a visiting fellow at the Grantham Institute and senior honorary visiting fellow at Cass Business School. Nick has advised the UK’s Environment Department (DEFRA) and Development Department (DFID) and the German Development Department (GTZ) on climate finance in developing countries, presented at the launch of the Climate Investment Funds at the World Bank and at a number of UNFCCC conferences and G8 Gleneagles dialogue conferences. Nick is part of the UK Government’s Capital Markets Climate Initiative which aims to drive large scale investment into climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Margot Wallström, is a former Member of Parliament, Cabinet Minister of Sweden and diplomat, who until recently held the post of United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) on Sexual Violence in Conflict. Prior to this, she served for ten years as European Commissioner: 1999–2004 as Environment Commissioner, and 2004–2010 as Vice President and Commissioner for Institutional Relations and Communication Strategy in the Barroso Commission. She is currently the chairman of Lund University in Sweden.