What happens now? It’s a reasonable question after the intense focus on Glasgow, the highs and lows of which are still being explored. Was it a compromise with coal or the end of the line for fossil fuels? What will happen now with green hydrogen and other technologies? What sectors might immediately be boosted? Can the leading countries deliver on 2030? Will laggards like Australia be isolated? What of China and India?

Please join us on February 22 at 6pm as we hear from our expert panel to discuss the consequences of COP26, and canvas the agenda for the rest of the decade and beyond.

About the panellists

Alison Atherton is a Research Principal at the Institute for Sustainable Futures. She has a background in social sciences and chartered accountancy and over a decade of experience in sustainability research and consultancy. Alison has worked with many organisations to assist them in measuring and improving their triple bottom line sustainability performance. She has extensive experience in projecting planning, management and implementation, including large, multi-year, multi-partner projects. Alison's primary research interest is in institutional and organisational change and learning for sustainability. Her research projects have covered the areas of energy efficiency and energy productivity, strategies for carbon reduction, energy and climate change policy, electricity market reform, sustainable transport, sustainable buildings, behavioural and organisational change, deliberative democracy, corporate sustainability, packaging sustainability, supply chain sustainability, tools and frameworks for measuring sustainability performance and measurement and monetisation of environmental impacts of organisations. Her clients include all levels of government and government agencies, the not-for-profit and private sectors. Prior to joining ISF, Alison worked for KPMG on corporate sustainability and prior to that, she worked for the UK leading sustainable development organisation Forum for the Future, developing tools for monetising organisations environmental and social impacts. From 2005-2010 Alison also worked part time for the Purves Environmental Fund, a private environmental fund with a focus on climate change and environmental education, managing all aspects of the Fund's grant-giving activities.

Tim Buckley has 30 years financial markets experience, including providing public interest related financial analysis in the seaborne coal and electricity sectors since 2013, studying energy efficiency and renewables across China and India, and the resulting stranded asset risks in Australia. Tim has published numerous financial papers, starting with “Peak Thermal Coal Demand by 2016” in conjunction with the Carbon Tracker Initiative in 2014 to “As owner of India’s most valuable energy company, the Adani Group should lead the country’s energy strategy” and “IEEFA: Malaysia’s CIMB announces coal financing phase-out by 2040 as Asia’s fossil fuel divestment drive accelerates” in 2020. Tim has founded Climate Energy Finance Australasia in 2022, having worked with the global thinktank IEEFA over 2013-2021. Tim was co-founder of a start-up global listed clean energy equities fund with Westpac as a cornerstone investor. From 1998 to 2007 Tim was Managing Director at Citigroup, Head of Australasian Equity Research, and worked at Macquarie Group in Australia then Deutsche Bank in Singapore as a top rated equity analyst since 1988.

Alia Armistead is a Climate and Energy Researcher with the Australia Institute, a progressive public policy think tank based in Canberra, and has conducted research on climate emergency declarations, climate risk, fossil fuel subsidies, negative emissions technologies and energy grid maintenance. Alia previously worked at the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration and attended COP24 in Katowice, Poland as a youth delegate in 2018.

The Honourable Bob Carr is Industry Professor (Business and Climate Change) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Professor Carr works with the Institute for Sustainable Futures and the UTS School of Business, bringing his unique skills and experience to diverse portfolios, including business and industry, international relations and climate change research and policy. Professor Carr is a former Foreign Minister of Australia (2012-2013). He is also the longest continuously serving Premier in New South Wales history (1995-2005). Between 2014-2019 he was Director of the Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI) at UTS, the only think tank in Australia devoted to the study of the Australia-China relationship.

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