President of Carbon Free Alliance and a Special Ambassador for Carbon Free Energy, Republic of Korea

Dr. Hoesung Lee is the President of Carbon Free Alliance and a Special Ambassador for Carbon Free Energy, Republic of Korea. The Caron Free Alliance is an organization launched in October 2023 by the Government of the Republic of Korea as a public and private sector platform to promote carbon-free energy globally to support climate solutions and economic growth. Dr. Lee was Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6th Assessment (2015–2023) which provided, among others, key scientific inputs to the first Global Stocktake in 2023 under the Paris Agreement. He is an economist by training in the fields of climate change, energy and sustainable development. He serves as Chair of the Asian Development Bank President’s Advisory Board on Climate Change and Sustainable Development. He was the founding president of the Korea Energy Economics Institute — a government agency for national energy policy development. He was distinguished research fellow at the Korea Environment Institute, senior adviser to the Minister of Energy and Resources and the Minister of Environment, senior fellow at the Korea Development Institute and economist at Exxon Company USA. Dr. Lee was Co-Chair of the IPCC Working Group III (the economic and social dimensions of climate change) for the Second Assessment which provided a scientific basis for the UNFCCC’s Kyoto Protocol. He served as Vice-Chair of IPCC from 2008 to 2015, and lead author and review editor for the various IPCC assessments. Dr. Lee received his BA from Seoul National University and a PhD in Economics from Rutgers University, USA.

Senior Director, Center for Energy Studies, Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice University, US

Dr. Medlock, III is the James A. Baker, III and Susan G. Baker Fellow in Energy and Resource Economics and senior director of the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute, co-director of the Master of Energy Economics program, and adjunct professor in Economics and Civil and Environmental Engineering. He is Distinguished Fellow at IEEJ and on the Advisory Board of the Payne Institute at Colorado School of Mines. He has published numerous articles, has testified multiple times on Capitol Hill, has spoken at OPEC, and frequently speaks at venues around the world. He has received several awards for scholarly achievements, most recently the 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award for the Advancement of Education for Future Energy Leaders from the Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah Foundation. He is a member of the AEA and NPC. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Rice University in May 2000.

Research Fellow, Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University SIPA

Dr. Mitrova has twenty five years of experience in dealing with Russian, FSU and global energy markets, including production, transportation, demand, energy policy, pricing and market restructuring. From February 2017 to December 2020, she was the Executive Director of the Energy Centre of the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO, a graduate business-school. From 2006-2011 she has also been the Head of Research in the Oil and Gas Department in the Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. She is a graduate of Moscow State University’s Economics Department. She is a Visiting Professor at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po). She is a member of the board of directors of the global oil service company Schlumberger since July 2018. She has more than 200 publications in scientific and business journals and co-authors10 scientific books as well as best-seller “The 8 and 1/2 Steps: How to Live, Love And Work At Full Capacity” (stories of women leaders).

Distinguished Research Fellow and Founder Natural Gas Research Programme, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, UK

Professor Stern is a Distinguished Research Fellow and founder of the Natural Gas Research Programme at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES). He holds professorships at the University of Dundee; and fellowships at the Energy Delta Institute and the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan.

Associate Fellow, Chatham House, UK, Emeritus Professor, University of Dundee, UK

Educated as an economist and as a specialist on the Middle East at Cambridge and SOAS; 1973-1979 teaching at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon; 1979-93 at the University of Surrey. Between 1993 and 2008, he was Professor of Petroleum Policy and Economics at the University of Dundee, Scotland, a chair created by BP. He is an expert in the international petroleum industry, economic development in the Gulf and energy economics.

Special Advisor, The Sasakawa Peace Foundation

Mr. Tanaka has decades of experience with energy and finance since he joined the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI; presently METI) in 1973. He has also worked for Japanese Embassy in Washington, D.C., and OECD. He served as Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) from 2007 to 2011. Joined IEEJ as Global Associate in 2011. Since 2020, he holds current position. He holds MBA from Case Western Reserve University, US.