Najam Appointed to Expert Panel on Energy Geopolitics
Adil Najam, Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, has been appointed to serve on the expert panel of the Global Commission on the Geopolitics of Energy Transformation.
The Global Commission has been set up by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) to examine the immediate and longer-term geopolitical implications of global energy transformation driven by large scale-up of renewable energy in the context of global efforts to tackle climate change and advance sustainable development. The Global Commission held its first meeting in Berlin earlier this year and is expected to meet three more times before launching its report in 2019.
The Global Commission is chaired by Mr. Olafur Grimsson (former President of Iceland) and also includes Christiana Figueres (former executive secretary of the UNFCCC), Joschka Fischer (former Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister of Germany), Pascal Lamy (former Director General of the World Trade Organization), Mari Elka (former Minister of Trade of Indonesia), Bill Richardson (former U.S. Congressman, Governor of New Mexico, and U.S. Secretary of Energy), Izabella Teixeira (former Minister of Environment of Brazil), amongst others.
Najam’s contributions to the Global Commission will focus on future scenario development of possible geopolitical shifts that may be triggered by energy system transformation, and particularly on the opportunities and challenges this may pose for developing countries.
Adil Najam is the inaugural dean of the Pardee School and a professor of international relations and also of earth and environment at Boston University. He was a co-author for the Third and Fourth Assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); work for which the IPCC was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize for advancing the public understanding of climate change science.