The COP30 United Nations climate conference will be held in Belém, Brazil, from Nov. 10-21. University of Victoria (UVic) experts listed below are available to the media for comment in their areas of research, as well as sharing their broader insights on conference topics, impacts and outcomes.
Learn more about UVic’s climate impact.
Jason Colby (History) is an expert in environmental history, particularly the historical interactions of humans and marine mammals. He is the author of Orca: How We Came to Know and Love the Ocean’s Greatest Predator, which examines the transformation of human relations with killer whales (Orcinus orca) and its impact on regional and global environmental values and policy. His current research projects focus on the history and future of people and gray whales, as well as the history of people and climate change. He can speak on these subjects and broader topics like the history of environmental activism and shifting environmental values. (Contact: [email protected])
Peter Dietsch (Philosophy) is an economic ethicist whose research evaluates economic policies and their ramifications for the distribution of income and wealth, democracy, the environment, and other values we might care about from a broader, social perspective. Dietsch is the author of Catching Capital—The Ethics of Tax Competition, co-author of Do Central Banks Serve the People?, and co-editor of Global Tax Governance—What is Wrong with It and How to Fix It. (Contact: [email protected])
Jutta Gutberlet (Geography) is a geographer, who works with waste pickers in many countries in the global south and binners on the West Coast of Canada. She has been supporting waste pickers to help themselves—to improve working conditions, form co-operatives and associations, promote inclusive public policies and advance social movements. Gutberlet can discuss the relationship between waste and climate change, the environmental impacts of plastics, and the key changes needed to address the effects of waste on the planet. (Contact: [email protected])
Sean Holman (Writing) is UVic’s Wayne Crookes Professor in Environmental and Climate Journalism and an expert in the impacts of climate-influenced disasters, including loss and damage issues. The award-winning director of the Climate Disaster Project, which is running a series of student-collected climate-survivor testimonials in UK outlet The Guardian during COP30, Holman can also speak about climate coverage, climate misinformation and the impact global warming will have on democratic decline. (Contact: [email protected])
Tamara Krawchenko (Public Administration, Accelerating Community Energy Transformation (ACET) is an expert in the strategic governance of sustainability and energy transitions, regional development and just transition policies across multiple countries and the research lead for policy and planning with ACET. Krawchenko can comment on how countries, communities and regions are managing energy and sustainability transitions, including work in BC on Northern Regional Energy Dialogues. In her research, she advocates for a territorial development approach to climate policy. (Contact: [email protected])
Basma Majerbi (Gustavson School of Business) is an expert in sustainable finance and can speak to climate-related financial risks and opportunities, green and transition finance taxonomies and climate disclosures, and related topics in environment, social and governance and impact investing. Majerbi is the founding director of the Impact Investing Hub and the lead investigator on the business and finance innovation research stream within Accelerating Community Energy Transformation (ACET). She is also part of the core team of the Coastal Climate Solutions Leaders (CCSL) program. (Contact: [email protected])
Ian Mauro (Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS)) is an expert in climate action partnerships, community-based climate projects, and multimedia climate education and knowledge mobilization. A filmmaker and scientist, and executive director of PICS, Mauro can discuss climate science, society and sustainability, and the importance of interweaving academic, local and Indigenous knowledges. (Contact: [email protected])
Kate Moran (Ocean Networks Canada/Faculty of Science) is an expert on ocean observing, the Arctic and climate change. She can speak about emerging technologies and innovations in ocean-based carbon dioxide removal, including the Solid Carbon project, for which she serves as principal investigator. Moran co-led the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program’s Arctic Coring Expedition, which recovered the first paleoclimate record from the Arctic Ocean. An engineer by training, Moran was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2023 and is an elected American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow. (Contact: [email protected])
Felix Pretis (Economics) is an expert in climate economic research and is co-director of the Climate Econometric Research Network. His international research network develops methods to better understand the complex relationships between human actions and climate responses and their associated economic effects. He can discuss this research and his most recent studies about the economic impacts of 1.5°C versus 2°C of global warming. (Email at [email protected])
Katya Rhodes (Public Administration, ACET and Institute for Integrated Energy Systems at UVic) is a climate policy expert investigating the issues of effective and acceptable pathways through the Realizing the Energy Transition project. Rhodes is selected as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Seventh Assessment Report (AR7), on Chapter 5 Barriers and Enablers to Climate Change Mitigation. (Contact: [email protected])
