Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change

Latest Episodes:

Energy Security - Deflating the Gasbags - Ep80: Emma Pinchbeck Mar 16, 2022

Show notes

Emma Pinchbeck has been the Chief Executive of Energy UK, the trade association for the energy industry since July 2020.

Before taking up this post she was Deputy CEO of RenewableUK for 4 years and was the Head of Climate Change at WWF-UK.

Emma holds an MA from the University of Oxford. She is a competitive rower and in 2018 ran her first marathon, raising money for WWF.

A Greener Future Made Possible by Finance - Ep79: Rhian-Mari Thomas Mar 09, 2022

Show notes

Rhian-Mari Thomas is Chief Executive of the Green Finance Institute. The Institute sits at the nexus of the public and private sectors, the Green Finance Institute convenes and leads sectoral coalitions of global experts, that identify and unlock barriers to investment towards impactful, real-economy outcomes. The Green Finance Institute is backed by the UK Government and City of London Corporation.

Rhian spent 20 years in investment banking and corporate finance and was awarded an OBE for services to green banking. She is an Emeritus Member of TCFD and co-chaired the launch of the TNFD to which she is a senior advisor.

Rhian sits on numerous advisory groups across UK Government including the Net Zero Expert Group, Centre for Greening Finance and Investment, Global Resources Initiative, Department for Transport Expert Panel, Her Majesty’s Treasury Green Technical Advisory Group and the UK Voluntary Carbon Markets Forum. Rhian was also a commissioner on the Zero Carbon Commission and a member of the Climate Change Committee’s Net Zero Finance Advisory Group. Rhian sits on the advisory board for UCL Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources and co-chairs the advisory board for Snowball Impact Management.

A fluent Welsh speaker, Rhian holds a PhD in Physics from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.

Further reading:

Green Finance Institute

https://www.greenfinanceinstitute.co.uk/

International Women's Day - Towards an Inclusive Transition - Cleaning Up Audioblog Episode 5 Mar 08, 2022

Show notes

Maths, Models and Melting Ice - Ep78: Emily Shuckburgh Mar 02, 2022

Show notes

Professor Emily Shuckburgh OBE is Director of Cambridge Zero, the University of Cambridge's major climate change initiative.

Emily is a climate scientist and mathematician, a Fellow of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, an Associate Fellow of the Centre for Science and Policy and a Fellow of the British Antarctic Survey. She leads the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training on the Application of AI to the study of Environmental Risks.

A polar expert, she previously led a UK national research programme on the Southern Ocean and its role in climate.

In 2016 she was awarded an OBE for services to science and the public communication of science. She is co-author with HRH The Prince of Wales and Tony Juniper of the Ladybird Book on Climate Change.

Further reading:

Official bio

https://www.cst.cam.ac.uk/people/efs20

Cambridge Zero

https://www.zero.cam.ac.uk/

Cambridge Zero Policy Forum

https://www.csap.cam.ac.uk/Research-Policy-Engagement/cambridge-zero/

AI4ER

https://ai4er-cdt.esc.cam.ac.uk/

Centre for Landscape Regeneration

https://www.clr.conservation.cam.ac.uk/

Environmental Conscience of the World - Ep77: Inger Andersen Feb 23, 2022

Show notes

Inger Andersen is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme.

From 2015 until 2019, Inger was the Director-General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Before that she worked at the World Bank for 15 years in roles such as Vice President of the Middle East and North Africa; Vice President for Sustainable Development and Head of the CGIAR Fund Council.

Prior to joining the World Bank, Inger worked at the UN, focusing mostly on drought and desertification issues.

Her career began in Sudan, where she worked as an English teacher and moved to development sector in 1985 to work at the Sudan Aid.

Inger holds a BA from the London Metropolitan University North and a MA in Development Economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

A Quantum of Hope - Ep76: Tommaso Demarie Feb 16, 2022

Show notes

Tommaso Demarie (PhD) is co-founder and CEO of Entropica Labs, a company working on optimisation with and for quantum computing.

Tommaso has 12 years of experience in the field of quantum information and computation. Before founding Entropica, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Singapore's Centre for Quantum Technologies and Singapore University of Technology and Design.

His research interests included (and include, when he finds the time to publish research articles) applications of quantum-based protocols, verification of quantum computation, and novel cryptographic schemes for quantum computing.

Tommaso holds an Undergraduate Degree in Physics and a Masters in Environmental Physics from the University of Torino (Turin, Italy) and a PhD in Physics from Macquarie University, Sydney.

Further reading:

Entropica’s website

https://www.entropicalabs.com/

Tommaso's Google Scholar

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_MoOYCsAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Tommaso's LinkedIn profile

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommasodemarie/

Q4Climate

https://q4climate.github.io/#:~:text=Q4Climate%20is%20an%20initiative%20that,and%20impact%20of%20climate%20change.&text=Find%20practical%20solutions%20using%20the%20highest%20possible%20scientific%20rigor.

US Net Zero - From Pledge to Policy - Ep75: David Turk Feb 09, 2022

Show notes

David Turk serves as Deputy Secretary in the US Department of Energy.

Before joining President Biden’s administration in 2021, David spent over 4 years as Deputy Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA). He was Head of Strategic Initiatives Office and Head of Energy Environment Division.

During the Obama administration David worked at the Department of Energy (Deputy Assistant Secretary), the Department of State (Deputy Special Envoy) and at the National Security Council as a Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director. Between 2001 and 2007 David was a counsel in the US Senate, working for Senators Joe Biden and Kent Conrad.

David holds a bachelor’s degree from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and JD from the University of Virginia Law School

Europe's Clean Power Leader - Ep74: Francesco Starace Feb 02, 2022

Show notes

Francesco Starace is Chief Executive Officer and General Manager of Enel.

Before becoming the CEO in 2014, Francesco spent 14 years at Enel, holding a number of executive positions - between 2008 and 2014 he led Enel’s renewable power generation business, Enel Green. Prior to this role which included overseeing the businesses’ IPO. Before 2008 Francesco was, inter alia, Head of Business Power and Managing Director of the Market Division.

Before joining Enel, Francesco worked at General Electric, ABB and Alstom. His work has taken him to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and the United States

Francesco served as a member of the Advisory Board of the United Nations’ Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) between 2014 and 2017 and has been Chair of SEforALL’s Administrative Board since October 2020. Francesco also served on the Board of Directors of the United Nations’ Global Compact from 2015 until 2021. Between 2016 and 2018, he was co-chair of the World Economic Forum's Energy Utilities and Energy Technologies Community. Francesco served as President of Eurelectric between 2017 and 2019. Since January 2020 he has been co-chair of the WEF “Net Zero Carbon Cities – Systemic Efficiency Initiative” and since January 2021 he has been co-chair of the European Clean Hydrogen Alliance’s round table on "Renewable and Low-carbon Hydrogen Production.”

Even though Francesco has a degree in nuclear engineering from Polytechnic University of Milan, he is a fan of A.S. Roma. His other passions include cycling and poetry.

Waging War on Climate Change - Ep73: Lt Gen Richard Nugee Jan 26, 2022

Show notes

Lieutenant General (Retd) Richard Nugee is the lead author of the UK Ministry of Defence’s Climate Change and Sustainability Strategic Approach report.

Richard spent over 35 years in the military. He was first commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1985. During his service he reached the rank of Lieutenant General and was the Chief of the Defence People between 2016 and 2020.

He led the works on UK MoD’s Climate Change and Sustainability Review between 2020 and 2021 and retired from the army in May 2021.

Richard was appointed MBE in June 1998, CBE in January 2012, CVO in September 2016, and CB in January 2020, he was awarded the US Legion of Merit for his services in Afghanistan in 2014. He holds BA degree from Durham University and MA from King’s College London.

Further reading:

Ministry of Defence Climate Change and Sustainability Strategic Approach (March 2021)

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ministry-of-defence-climate-change-and-sustainability-strategic-approach/ministry-of-defence-climate-change-and-sustainability-strategic-approach-accessible-version

Solving the Low Carbon Skills Gap - Ep72: Nathan Gambling Jan 19, 2022

Show notes

Nathan Gambling is a heating engineer and lecturer who has taught in colleges and a prison. As well as industry, teaching and assessing qualifications he has a psychology degree in Behavioural studies and is regarded as a leading expert around training and the learning process within plumbing and heating.

He has a remarkable heritage within the heating industry: As central heating first started to take hold it was his grandfather who brought Swedish oil burner technology to the UK and was the UK’s leading oil combustion expert venerated throughout Europe. His great uncle was lead engineer and European Energy manager for Unilever and his dad was a technical rep for Trianco Redfyre who back in the 80s was the UK’s leading boiler manufacture.

He sometimes works with his cousin who is the UK’s leading acoustic sensitive heating and ventilation engineer installing and maintaining the comfort cooling and heating systems in some of the world’s best recording and post production facilities here in the UK.

Nathan often jokes that some of the radio/tv stations who’ve had guests on dismissing heat pumps are actually sitting in facilities heated and cooled with heat pump technology his cousin’s engineers installed, and that if heat pumps were that noisy you’d hear them on some of the world’s most famous record albums."

He currently hosts the award winning low carbon and renewable heating podcast BetaTalk and provides consultancy. He is regarded as knowing who the best engineers in the UK are and has helped senior figures in the energy discourse find competent engineers for their own homes. He is also able to help local authorities receiving money from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund understand who the competent suppliers are on their Dynamic Purchasing Systems

Further reading:

Depher

https://www.depher.co.uk/

Miriam Violet Griffith

https://twitter.com/MLiebreich/status/1480645001155858433

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Miriam_Violet_Griffith

BetaTeach

https://www.betateach.co.uk/