As is conventional, each pairing includes one minister from a developed and one from a developing country.
As an environment minister from Sweden’s Green Party when this doubling pledge was made, Per Bolund is one of the few developed country ministers with any moral authority on finance.
Singapore’s environment minister will co-lead discussions on the most difficult issue of the Paris rulebook – Article 6 on carbon markets.
A trained accountant and auditor, Fu has had a stellar business career.
Having been Norway’s environment minister for just 25 days, Eide has been thrown in the deep end by the Cop Presidency, as he co-leads talks on Article 6.
He’s been the Norwegian Labour Party’s spokesperson on climate for four years and was foreign minister in Jens Stoltenberg’s government before Ban-Ki Moon appointed him the United Nations special adviser on Cyprus.
Like many on Norway’s left, he had a brush with tragedy in 2011 when the political camp his teenage son was attending was attacked by neo-nazi Anders Breivik.
The Rwandan environment minister will co-lead the talks on common timeframes, the issue of how often countries’ official NDC climate plans should be updated and what time period they should cover.
She went on to study in India before becoming the Rwandan ambassador to Russia and was the education minister before getting the environment brief in 2019.
Before Cop26, president-designate Alok Sharma has tasked him and Denmark’s Dan Jørgensen with informal consulting with other ministers on how they can reduce their emissions faster this decade, to keep the 1.5C of global warming limit within reach.
The arrangement worked so well that he kept that role after the 2020 election, despite Ardern’s party gaining an outright majority.
Under the Paris Agreement, countries agreed to establish a global goal on adaptation, but six years later it remains unclear what that means in practice.
After studying in Missouri, USA, Shauna became a journalist for Minivan News before joining the government as an aide to then-president and climate advocate Mohammed Nasheed in 2012.
Earlier this year, Ribera stewarded a climate law through parliament, which included a mandate to end fossil fuel production by 2042.
His father, Pearnel Charles Senior, was the deputy leader of the Jamaica Labour Party for nearly twenty years, during a violent and troubled time in Jamaican politics.
Paired with Charles Junior is the environment minister of one of the smallest developed countries, Luxembourg.
Support our work today with a donation or by subscribing to our daily newsletter for exclusive extra content.