Student solutions to climate change
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How does CliMates work
Run entirely by students, CliMates has a central organization of 35 students in Paris and 15 ambassadors around the world.
The Board coordinates the association. It is composed of the CliMates President, the Vice-President, the Treasurer, the Secretary General and the Coordinators of the four teams.
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Four main teams drive the association:
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Network Team
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General Secretary - Regional Officer - Eastern Europe Thomas Millet is a Master student (fifth year) in International Affairs, with a specialization in "Environment, Sustainable Development and Risks" at the Parisian School of International Affairs (PSIA). He is currently engaged in an internship in the GoodPlanet Foundation, a non for profit organization created in 2005 by the famous photographer/film director Yann Arthus Bertrand, and whose goal is to sensibilize the society about environmental matters. He spent the third year of his bachelor in the University of Montreal. |
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Jonathan Bowman Clarke
Regional Officer – Western Europe
Jonathan is a bit of a European mess, French, Brit, Italian and Irish all in one. After obtaining his Bachelor at the LSE in International Relations & History, the young fellow travelled around with his beloved backpack for a while before heading to the City of Lights, Paris. There he studied in Sciences-Po's Environment, Sustainable Development and Risks Masters, and is currently interning in the Sustainable Development and Risks team of a consulting firm. With his driving passion for changing the world and making it a better place for all (except nasty, selfish people), he participated in COP Rewind in 2011 and joined the CliMates team as the Network's Western European Officer. |
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Regional Officer Middle East and Northern Africa Océane Thieriot is currently studying as a Master student at Sciences Po in European Affairs and at the Ecole Normale Supérieure - Ulm, after having graduated from la Sorbonne. She previously worked as a teaching assistant at Oxford University and as an intern in the international cooperation agency of the French Ministry of Finance, in the department in charge of cooperation with Egypt and Syria. |
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Regional Officer – South America
Eudora Berniolles is doing a Master of International Affairs in Sustainable development at Sciences Po Paris, after undergraduating in humanities and geography. She played the role of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat during a simulation of climate negotiations in June 2011. Currently, she is doing an internship in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs on international negotiations on food security. She is interested in interactions between stakeholders and interlocking scales in the global governance. |
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Regional Officer – South America Emma Castel is studying the politics and sciences of the environment at the Paris School of International Affairs. She has a degree in biology and currently works for the Cook Islands’ Ministry of Marine Resources as a policy adviser in public health and environmental management. She greatly appreciates human contact all over the world and loves experimenting in new ways of cooking. |
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Cécile Massé
Deputy Coordinator / Regional Officer – Sub-Saharan Africa
Blue-eyed with green fingers, she wants to save the world. First point on the agenda, fighting climate change! Ambitious? Certainly! But not impossible thanks to CliMates where she is in charge of the regional office for Africa. Why that? In Africa lies a part of her childhood and her greatest hopes for the future. |
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Regional Officer - North America Majoring in Public Affairs and Government at Sciences Po Paris, he is particularly interested in the political and diplomatic aspects of the climate crisis. He is currently studying on exchange at Boston College, which illustrates the 'special relationship' he has always had with the North American continent. |
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Edouard Laurent
Ambassador - China
Edouard Laurent is a graduate student in international affairs and sustainable development in the dual master's degree between Sciences Po Paris and Peking University. Prior to this, he pursued political science, philosophy and Chinese studies in both Geneva University and Lausanne University. His research interests at present comprise Chinese government policies toward the environment, especially the issue of carbon tax and carbon market. |
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Regional Officer - Asia Céline Steer is undertaking a master in Environment, Sustainable Development, and Risks at Sciences Po in Paris. Prior to that, she completed a master in International Relations from the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations in Switzerland. She also received a Bachelor of Arts in Communications/Public Relations, from the University of Texas at San Antonio, in the United States. Céline has relevant work experience in international organizations such as UNESCO, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, IUCN, and International Crisis Group. She is highly interested in the role of education for sustainable development and peace. On her free time, Céline likes to travel, do ecotourism, learn new languages and play sports. |
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Clément Chadenet
Ambassador - Australia
Clément Chadenet is a Sciences-Po student majoring in public affairs in exchange at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, convinced that climate change is today’s very first goal that immediately requires a global response. He sees therefore Climates as an adequate platform to tackle this issue and is particularly interested in both the political as well as the intellectual initiative. He is currently dealing with questions of water management in a country regularly facing severe draughts. |
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Ambassador - Turkey He is from Bursa-Turkey and he is a third year medical student in Uludag University. Involving lots of national and international projects and meetings, he has been so appriciated to be in CliMates to know most active students of Europe who works about Climate Change..! He is specifically interested in Climate Change and its effects on Health. |
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Marion Waller
Ambassador - Philippines
She is French and German and is doing a double bachelor in Sciences Po and La Sorbonne (philosophy). She spends her third year in Ateneo de Manila University, in the Philippines. She joined CliMates in order to involve more Filipino people in the global debate and in order to think about environmental philosophy. |
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Regional Officer - Eastern Europe Tamas holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Environment, Sustainable Development and Risks at Sciences Po Paris. Committed to contribute to solve one of the most challenging problems of the upcoming decades, he developed a particular interest in water resource management, water supply and sanitation. He recently returned from India where he took up assignments with the United Nations University and a local NGO on sanitation and waste management projects. Tamas is currently working at the OECD in Paris on the distributional costs of policy inaction in water resource management, with a special focus on the water-energy-food security nexus. A Hungarian-born but Latin American by heart, he is obsessed with Cuban salsa and Colombian cuisine. |
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Network Team - Regional Officer for Africa and Middle East Sarah Challe is doing a Master in International Economic Policies at Sciences Po Paris, concentrating on emerging economies and African studies. Prior to this, she spent a year in Santiago de Chile where she studied economics and volunteered in a microfinance NGO. Interested in solidarity finance and development economics, she is also found of nature and very excited to work with CliMates!
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Sarah Challe
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Ambassador - Spain Because she never lost her childhood dream to change the world, Aurore is currently doing a double degree at Sciences po and UPMC in order to get into the “Environmental and Political Sciences” master. Looking forward to working in international organisations to fight for more humanity and sustainability, she got involved in CliMates after a short internship at the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, Sydney. Last year, she did an exchange at Pune University (India) which enabled her to experience developing countries’ way of life. After taking a gap semester to travel and discover the world, she is now doing an exchange at the Complutense University in Madrid. |
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Network Team - Costa Rica Santiago is currently doing a double degree in Political Sciences and Business Administration in Universidad de Costa Rica. Has been working with youth organisations and youth related events since very young, such as representative for the Costa Rican Youth Committee from Ministery of Youth, Focal Director for The World Youth Alliance Costa Rica, Costa Rican delegate at UNIV Conference in Rome 2008, international volunteer for the World Youth Conference in Mexico 2010, and many other social initiatives within the country. As well is now pursuing an internship in renewable energies related issues for 2013 before graduating, due his recent interests in Sustainable Development. One of his major passions is anthropology and folklore, and for this has been traveling as much as he can since 18 years old. Languages are other of his interests, and fencing and swimming in his more remarkable sports.
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Santiago Vega Ruiz
The Central Research Team guides CliMates delegations in the collaborative and multidisciplinary research process. Its members closely analyze the outcomes of climate change negotiations and issues. To launch CliMates' delegates in their research and debate, the Central Research Team suggests burning topics and issues, and centralizes the delegations' publications on this platform.
Central Research Team
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Central Research Team Coordinator Student at Sciences Po and Pierre et Marie Curry University, completing a Master's at the Paris School of International Affairs in « Sciences and Politics of the Environnment », she has been committed to the protection of the environment and to the promotion of sustainable development for many years. She participated in and enjoyed the simulation « Copenhague RW », and for this reason has joined CliMates in order to tackle the challenge of researching, debating and finding solutions in the fight against climate change. |
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Henri Landes
President / Central Research Team
Master’s student at the Paris School of International Affairs (SciencesPo, Paris) in Environment, Sustainable Development and Risks, he is French-American, born in New York City and raised in San Francisco from the age of 6. After studying history and German at the University of California, Davis, where he earned Phi Beta Kappa, he played the futures professional tennis circuit for two years before pursuing graduate studies at SciencesPo. In June 2011, he played the role of President of the Copenhagen negotiations simulation. He just finished an internship at the French government’s international cooperation agency for the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, during which he focused primarily on regional projects in climate change and energy. |
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Alexis Metzger
Central Research Team
Alexis Metzger is a PhD student in geography. After studying humanities for three years, he graduated a Masters’ degree of geography with a specialization in Environment and Sustainable Development at Panthéon-Sorbonne University. He just started a PhD in geoclimatology on snow in lowlands in Western Europe. He participated in numerous colloquia on climate and its representations and since September 2011, he has taught about the links between climate and human societies at Sorbonne University. The scale of territories is for him the most relevant scale to think about climate change and he is very interested in the issue of adaptation to climate change. |
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Central Research Team Master’s student at Sciences Po in public affairs and at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in medieval history, Jérôme spent a year studying at the University of Chicago as an exchange student and is currently interning at the “Conseil d’Etat”, the French supreme court of appeal for administrative law courts. Convinced that students can impact on international decisions, he participated in COP Rewind in 2011 and joined CliMates as a member of the Central Research Team. He is particularly interested in the political aspects of the negotiations on climate change. |
Jérôme Gazzano|
Béatrice Cointe
Deputy Coordinator
Béatrice Cointe is a PhD student at CIRED where she works on policy issues related to photovoltaic energy. She holds a joint Master's degree in Environmental Science and Policy from Sciences Po Paris and University Pierre & Marie Curie. She was part of a French NGO's delegation to the Copenhagen Conference in December 2009 and has been obsessed with climate change ever since. Given that passion, she worked as an intern at IDDRI in an attempt to understand what the hell had been going on at COP15 and focused on the origins and meanings of the 2°C target. She is particularly interested in the way science and politics overlap when dealing with climate, strangely enjoys reading UNFCCC literature and thinks brackets are one of the greatest inventions of the UN. |
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Central Research Team Laura just graduated from Sciences Po’s Middle Eastern studies program, which is located in Menton (Southern France). During her undergraduate studies, she spent two semesters abroad at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, where she participated in a simulation of the Cancún conference, representing Brazil. Currently, she is taking a gap year interning with the German development agency GIZ and is working on renewable energies in North Africa. She is planning to start reading for a Master’s in Environmental Policy in fall 2012. Regarding the climate negotiations, she is mostly interested in the relationship between developed and developing countries. |
Laura Führer|
Damien Kitmacher
Central Research Team
Damien Kitmacher is a final year master's degree student at Paris Descartes University where he follows a program dedicated to Law and sustainable development. He spent a year in Warwick University studying international and European law. Back in Paris, he decided to focus on both French and international environmental law and also on corporate social responsibility. He is preparing the bar exam this year and would like to gain strong expertise in sustainable development, working on state related problems. He is very interested in counselling activities and would be motivated by a career in the international public administration. |
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Florent Baarsch Central Research Team Student in economics at Euromed Management, Florent studied law and economics at the undergraduate level at Lyon III University. As a graduate student, he focused on environmental and public law, at the same university. As the president of REFEDD (the French Student Network for Sustainable Development), he wrote a report on higher education and sustainable development for UNESCO and the UN Decade on Education for Sustainable Development. He observed the international climate negotiations from 2008 to 2011 with Oxfam International and the Global Coalition for Climate Action. In 2010 – 2011 he spent 9 months on the small low-lying island state Tuvalu in order to understand adaptation and how climate change affects livelihoods in the South Pacific. While in Tuvalu he co-wrote a paper on water access in a context of climate change, that he presented at Columbia University (NYC). Later he co-wrote a second one on insurance mechanisms for climate related events in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) with the Norwegian research institute CICERO. He now focuses on project evaluations and REDD+. |
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Romaine Gruget
Central Research Team
Romaine is currently a third year degree student in international relations at Inalco (Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales), Paris, and is specialized in the Eastern-Asian area and most particularly in Japan. After one year in Japan (Nagoya) as an exchange student when she was a high-schooler, she decided to continue learning the language and studying the ins and outs of international relations to get a solid background both general and specialized on a geographical zone. She is planning to focus on environmental matters when graduated so that she can work with Japan which is one of the world’s leaders on these questions. |
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Andrea Vallejo Central Research Team On her final Master's year in International Public Management at Sciences Po Paris, Andrea is an Ecuadorian who believes in the potential of sustainable development. She studied Political Sciences in France and England, with a focus in Latin America. She is very interested in solutions to fight against climate change and having participated in the simulations of the Cop15 (Cop rw) as a representative of Brazil, her interest lies specially on the international political agenda for climate change solutions. During an internship at the "GEF-UNDP Small Grants Program" in Ecuador, she had the opportunity to work on the elaboration of small projects for climate change adaptation in local communities. She believes in the power of youth to bring fresh solutions and is more than happy to work with CliMates! |
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Francesca Kellaway
Central Research Team - Editor
Francesca is British-Italian and lives in London. She has always been interested in environmental issues and more recently climate change. This led her to study an undergraduate Geography degree at Oxford. During her second year at University she chose the Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation module, she also wrote her dissertation on coastal risk management in the context of climate change and submitted a literature review on climate change and water management. She is currently looking for a job and wants to do a Masters in the future. She wants to remain involved in the climate change debate and this is why she got involved in CliMates. |
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Ching HU Central Research Team Ching is a Singaporean student at Sciences Po, currently on his first year of a 2-year dual Master’s degree (Sciences Po-London School of Economics) in International Affairs. His passion in climate change issues led him to study Geography at Oxford University, where he earned the university’s Gibbs Prize and the departmental Beckit Prize in 2012. His academic interest in climate change ranges from climate change impact prediction to environmental justice, but outside academia he is most interested in mitigation strategies. Ching has represented Singapore at various international conferences including the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen (2009) and 2011 UNEP Conference in Bandung. He was recently awarded the Singapore Ecofriends award by the President of Singapore in recognition of his efforts to promote environmental awareness in both Singapore and abroad. |
Communication & Partnership
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Margot Le Guen Vice-President Margot is born in Paris in 1990 and since then, she has been fascinated by social and political sciences. Hence, she did her bachelor's at Sciences Po Paris, where she had the opportunity to do an exchange year at Boston College in Massachusetts. Willing to tackle the next generation’s biggest stake, she studied environmental policy in a Sciences Po MA in International Affairs – Environment, Sustainable Development and Risks. Convinced that sustainable energy is the next century’s key issue, she interned at a trade union gathering the largest European industries providing energy efficiency services. Her first experience in negotiations on climate change was to be part of the Indian delegation during COP Rewind in 2011, where she realized how urgent it is to impact political decisions. |
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Antonin Briard
Treasurer - Communication and Partnership
Antonin was born in Paris in 1988. He has always been interested in environmental and climate issues. In 2010, he graduated from an engineering school, Supélec. After a year spent in London where he obtained a MSc in Environmental Design and Engineering at UCL, he decided to carry on his academic education with a Master on Environment, Sustainable Development and Risks Management at the Paris School of International Affairs (Sciences Po). And now, Antonin feels that it is time for action: he truly believes the CliMates initiative can make a big change in how students can have an impact on the international decision making process. |
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Communication and Partnership Coordinator Born in Paris in 1986, Johann is a young engineer dedicated to energy and climate world issues. He holds MEng in Civil & Energy Engineering (2009), a MSc in Atomic Sciences and Engineering (2010) and is candidate to a MA in International Affairs - Sustainable Development in Sciences Po Paris, expecting to graduate in 2012. After several experiences in R&D, he got involved in many projects, events and conferences related to Climate Change in France and in the USA. He is also a Climate-KIC fellow and the Climate-KIC French alumni representative. Fascinated by dramatic arts, he has performed in many parisian theaters and recently discovered improvisation techniques. His motto: The more, The merrier ! |
Johann Margulies
| Amandine Volard
Communication and Partnership Amandine is an environmental engineering student at the EME, near Rennes. She created a song and realized an audiovisual project in order to take part to the youth movement during the Rio+20’s Summit. Actually studying all of the industrial environmental fields, she is going to focus on renewable energies and management during one semester at Aalborg University in Denmark. Strongly attached to the nature and the seaside, she decided to improve her involvement by joining CliMates. |
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Jean-Igor Michaux Communication and Partnership Born and raised in the Paris area, Jim moved to United States at the age of 18 where he attended the Latin school of Chicago as an exchange student and then went on to study economics, political science and hispanic literature at Knox College. During his junior year and a semester at the University of Buenos Aires later, his curiosity and interest for Latin American development grew stronger. Thus, back in Paris in 2010, he attended the Sorbonne University's Institute for Higher Latin American Studies where he earned a Masters degree in development economics, focusing on energy transition issues. Always eager to work on collaborative projects and research, Jim feels strongly about the CliMates initiative and will give his best effort in order to expand the student network.
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Mélina Longpré Communication and Partnership Born in Montreal, Mélina is an Economics Master's graduate specialized on social capital issues, passionate about new, resilient and fair models of development. Now living in Paris, after having worked as a sustainability consultant, she is pursuing her studies in Sciences Po Paris, specializing in environmental issues and sustainable development. Ever since she impersonated a UK negotiator in the COP Rewind project at the origin of CliMates - she has been an aficionada of COPs, sustainable development summits and climate governance in general. She is also a firm believer that the sustainable development paradigm belongs in mainstream economics - not at the margin. |
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Ryad Benaidji Communication and Partnership Ryad is a student in journalism. As an undergraduate student he studied History. After a year in Arhus (Denmark) as an exchange student, he attended a Master's degree in Communication at Lille III. In June 2012 he participated to the Earth Summit (Rio+20) during which he hold a blog, called L'Observ'alter.
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Sabrina Marquant Communication and Partnership Graduated in 2009 with a M2 in International Relations at l’Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques (IRIS), based in Paris, she worked during two years as a Research Fellow at the Cabinet Syndex based in Paris on Energy Transition in Europe and the Social Impacts in the Industrial Sector. Passionate about International Negotiations and Sustainable Development issues, she had decided to devote her master thesis on Copenhagen UNFCCC Conference and Post Kyoto. After participating to Paris+20 simulation and Rio+20 Conference, she has decided to shift her professional work towards the analysis of innovative solutions to re impulse International Negotiations on Sustainable Development and especially Climate Change issues. This is the reason why she has joined CliMates. |
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Communication and Partnership Team After integrating Sciences Po Paris in 2007, Camille travelled to Burkina Faso and Mali, working in the microfinance and women rights fields. She then studied Environment, Sustainable Development and Risks in the Sciences Po Paris School of International Affairs Master. She put what she had learnt into practice first by working for the Water and Sanitation Program of the President Jacques Chirac Foundation in France and second by volunteering for the Earth Charter International Secretariat in Costa Rica. She also started a Research Master on Medieval African History at the Sorbonne University in Paris. |
Camille Niaufre
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Maëlle Jean-Baptiste Communication and Partnership - Conference Organization After her Bachelors in Biology and Political Sciences, Maëlle graduated in June 2012 from Sciences Po Paris and Pierre et Marie Curie University (Master in Environmental Science and Policy). She did an internship in the World Health Organization and decided to further study environmental health. She has long been concern by environmental issues and got involved in 2011 by participating in the “COP Rewind” negotiations simulation as a Polish delegate. She learned there how cultural differences can complicate discussion and prevent agreement and decided, after taking part to another simulation in 2012 (Paris+20), to apply to CliMates to help solving incomprehension around environmental issues. |
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The Conference Team organizes the CliMates Conference of Delegations, everything from logistics and fundraising to communication and recruiting.
Conference Organization Team
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Conference Organization Team Coordinator Emma Castel is studying the politics and sciences of the environment at the Paris School of International Affairs. She has a degree in biology and currently works for the Cook Islands’ Ministry of Marine Resources as a policy adviser in public health and environmental management. She greatly appreciates human contact all over the world and loves experimenting in new ways of cooking. |
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Antonin Briard
Treasurer - Conference Organization Team
Antonin was born in Paris in 1988. He has always been interested in environmental and climate issues. In 2010, he graduated from an engineering school, Supélec. After a year spent in London where he obtained a MSc in Environmental Design and Engineering at UCL, he decided to carry on his academic education with a Master on Environment, Sustainable Development and Risks Management at the Paris School of International Affairs (Sciences Po). And now, Antonin feels that it is time for action: he truly believes the CliMates initiative can make a big change in how students can have an impact on the international decision making process. |
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Conference Organization Team Majoring in Public Affairs and Government at Sciences Po Paris, he is particularly interested in the political and diplomatic aspects of the climate crisis. He is currently studying on exchange at Boston College, which illustrates the 'special relationship' he has always had with the North American continent. |
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Maëlle Jean-Baptiste Conference Organization Team After her Bachelors in Biology and Political Sciences, Maëlle graduated in June 2012 from Sciences Po Paris and Pierre et Marie Curie University (Master in Environmental Science and Policy). She did an internship in the World Health Organization and decided to further study environmental health. She has long been concern by environmental issues and got involved in 2011 by participating in the “COP Rewind” negotiations simulation as a Polish delegate. She learned there how cultural differences can complicate discussion and prevent agreement and decided, after taking part to another simulation in 2012 (Paris+20), to apply to CliMates to help solving incomprehension around environmental issues. |
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Conference Organization Team Tamas holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Environment, Sustainable Development and Risks at Sciences Po Paris. Committed to contribute to solve one of the most challenging problems of the upcoming decades, he developed a particular interest in water resource management, water supply and sanitation. He recently returned from India where he took up assignments with the United Nations University and a local NGO on sanitation and waste management projects. Tamas is currently working at the OECD in Paris on the distributional costs of policy inaction in water resource management, with a special focus on the water-energy-food security nexus. A Hungarian-born but Latin American by heart, he is obsessed with Cuban salsa and Colombian cuisine. |
Webmaster Team
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Webmaster Coordinator Blogger, sometimes writer and journalist, he is currently doing a Master of International Affairs - Environment, Sustainable Development and Risks Management at the Paris School of International Affairs (Sciences po). After studying French literature, history and geography, then sociology and political sciences (MA of International Relations and Public Affairs at Lille 2), he did a research paper on "Environmental journalists" and, eager to promote green topics and sustainable development, he got involved in the PowerShift European Movement. In 2011 he took part to the COP Rewind simulation of negotiations in the ONG delegation. His internship at the French Ministry of Ecology led him to specialize on the concertation and risk management topics. Let's go CliMates! |
Mehdi Achour
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CliMates' Latest!
- Youth in action on climate change: inspirations from around the world. Look at the new publication by the United Nations Joint Framework Initiative on Children, Youth and Climate Change.
- Newsletter of March - April 2013 has just arrived! English version only.
- Check out the 2013 CliMates Brochure! English version only.
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Henri Landes interviewed by the UNFCCC Climate Studio during COP 18.
- Newsletter of January - February 2013 has just arrived! English version only.
- CliMates supports the message from YOUNGO to COP18 to support the Philippines!
- CliMates is in Doha! Read our press release (english version - french version)
- Laurence Serfaty and her team have been filming the entire Summit for a documentary produced by Camera Lucida and Hikari for France 5. She wrote an article on CliMates in her blog.
- CliMates officially endorses the Earth Charter. You can read the Charter here.
- CliMates officially supports the ICPS initiative by PIDES. It is an amazing program, and we look forward to seeing its development ! Watch & Share !
- Wonder who our CliMates are? Get to know in 10 questions our CliMates of the month here.
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