Montreal Climate Security Summit 2025

Brigadier General Luca Baione joint the Italian Air Force Academy in 1984 and graduated in 1988 as 1st Lieutenant.

After serving at operational level as Air Defence Controller, he made extensive experience in the international environment, serving as Military Observer for MINURSO (United Nation Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara), Liaison Officer for OSCE to the Foreign Ministry of the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in Belgrade, and as Branch Head at the Italian Military Representative to the NATO Military Committee.

Promoted to Colonel, he was appointed as Military assistant to the Italian Chief of Defence, and then he took over the position of Deputy military advisor to the Italian President of the Council of Ministers.

In January 2020 he was promoted to Brigadier General. Since 2021 General Baione is the Permanent Representative of Italy to the World Meteorological Organization, where he was elected as member of the Executive Council in 2023. General Baione lives in Milan, is married to Stefania De Santis and has two daughters (Chiara 30, Martina 21), one son (Paolo 27), and 2 dogs (Pizzi and Simba).

Colonel Giancarlo TURCO serves as Senior Staff Officer at NATO International Military Staff - Policy and Capability Division as responsible for the Climate Change and Security – Effects on Military Operations and Net Assessment. He graduated from Italian Army Military Academy, after the 5 year basic military course (1993) he was assigned, as infantry Lieutenant, first to 17th Infantry Regiment “Acqui” latter to the 80th Infantry Regiment “Roma” where he spent his early military career serving as platoon and company commander. He also served as Cadet Company Commander at Military School “Nunziatella” in Naples. Upon completion of various staff appointments, he served as 1st Battalion Commander at the 82th Infantry Regiment “Torino”. Over his military career, Col. TURCO occupied a multitude of staff assignments focused on manpower, planning and operations from strategic to the tactical level. These included the Italian Army General Staff - NCO Office SO in Rome and the Planning Branch Chief at the “Acqui” Division HQ. As Colonel he served as JFC Naples Base Support Group Commander (2015-2019) and Italian Army Infantry School Chief of Staff and Deputy Commander (2019-2022).

A successful graduate, Col. TURCO holds Master degrees in “Political Science” (1993), “Diplomatic and International Relations” (2004) and “Strategic Science” (2018). His studies also included the 127th Italian Army Staff college (2001) and the 8th Junior Defence Staff College, culminated, respectively, with the Advanced Master Degrees in “Strategic Science” (2001) and “International Relations” (2008). He also attended several courses within national and international environments (NATO, EU and UN) in the spheres of Juridical Advisory, Decision Making Process and Strategic Communication.

Operational duty has taken Col. TURCO from the Balkans to the UNIFIL Strategic Military Cell (SMC) at UN DPKO New York. He served in Kabul Afghanistan as ISAF/RS COS Military Assistant (2014 - 2015). Last Appointment was in Lebanon as J5 Branch Chief of UNIFIL (2022-23).

He was awarded with various personal and campaign medals including Knight of The Order Of Merit Of the Italian Republic, Mauritian Medal of Merit, Service Cross for Service Seniority (25 years), NATO RS and UNIFIL commemorative medal and “Medaille de la defense nationale francaise”. Col. TURCO has been married to Valeria and they have two daughters Roberta and Elena. His spare time is filled by cycling, gardening and watching movies.

Lieutenant-General Peter Scott was born in Northern Ireland and grew up in Kincardine, Ontario. Enrolling in the Canadian Armed Forces in 1990, he graduated from the Royal Military College in 1994 and was commissioned as an Infantry Officer into The Royal Canadian Regiment.

He has had the privilege of commanding from platoon to division level; most notably commanding the 1st Battalion of The Royal Canadian Regiment, the Canadian Manoeuvre Training Centre, Task Force Jerusalem, 4th Canadian Division and Joint Task Force Central, and most recently as the Deputy Commander Canadian Army.

Lieutenant-General Scott has participated in six operational deployments throughout his career including the United Nations Protection Force in Croatia in 1994-95, the NATO Stabilization Force in Bosnia in 1998, the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan in 2005 and again from 2013-2014. He also deployed to Ramallah in the West Bank in 2010 as part of the capacity building efforts of Op PROTEUS under the United States Security Coordinator (USSC) and had the honour of returning to this mission again in 2019 to be appointed as the Deputy Coordinator for USSC and Commander Task Force Jerusalem.

Throughout his career Lieutenant-General Scott has held a variety of staff positions including appointments at the Battalion and Brigade level, working on Army projects in the Directorate of Land Requirements, Chief of Staff to the Director General Land Capability Development, Infantry and Combat Arms Career Manager, Directing Staff at the Army Staff College, the Canadian Army G3, the Director General of Operations in the Strategic Joint Staff, and also served as the Chief of Staff at the Canadian Joint Operations Command. He assumed the role of Deputy Commander Joint Force Command Naples on 15 July 2024.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Commerce and a Masters of Defence Studies, both from The Royal Military College. He is a graduate of the Jamaica Junior Command and Staff Course, the Canadian Army Command and Staff College, the Joint Command and Staff Programme and the National Security Programme.

He is married to a talented and patient wife and together they are the proud parents of a daughter and son and grandparents to three wonderful boys.

Married and father of two children, Colonel Sylvain DEBARRE was born on 1st of April 1980. He joined the French Air Force the 29th of August 2001 at the French Air Force Academy on Salon de Provence Air Force Base (AFB) as an officer cadet mechanic.

In 2004, he was posted to Cambrai AFB, where he successively joined the Aircraft Division of the Specialized Technical Support Squadron 2E012, then the Fighter Squadron 02.012 «Picardie» as Technical Assistant Officer then Deputy Chief of Technical Services, where he was in charge of maintaining the availability of the Mirage 2000 C and B fleet of the squadron. He participated in numerous international exercises as Mirage 2000 technical manager in Scotland, Brazil, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, and was deployed in 2007 to Siauliai in Lithuania as part of the Baltic States Air Police Operation “Balto”.

In 2009, he passed the Military Higher Scientific and Technical Education (EMSST) entrance exam and joined the SUPAERO institute in Toulouse, where he studied engineering for two years with specialization in aerospace propulsion systems.

In 2011, he was assigned to the French Air Force Academy as a professor of Propulsion, Thermodynamics and Flight Mechanics for the benefit of officer cadets of the French Air Force. He then became head of the Aerospace Vehicles Department, and in 2016 he became Deputy Commander of the Division of Training in Science and Humanities, in charge of all academic programs of the French Air Force Academy. In 2017, he joined the Strategic Air Forces and the Technical Support Squadron 15.093, based on Istres AFB, as Head of the Business Control Division on Boeing K/C135. He was then engaged in multiples deployments, first in Chad (Operation “Barkhane”), then in the United Arab Emirates (Operation “Chammal”), as technical manager Boeing K/ C135.

Laureate of the War College the same year, he became Deputy Commander of the ESTS 15.093 in 2018, and took command between 2019 and 2021.

Between 2021 and 2023, he completed his War College training in Germany, as member of the German War College class (LGAN21), based at the Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr (FüAkBw) in Hamburg. Promoted to Colonel, he took over the command as Director of the NATO Space Center of Excellence on 21 August 2023.

Colonel Sylvain DEBARRE is a Knight in the National Order of Merit, holder of the Silver Medal of the National Defence with bars «Combat Air Force», «External Operations» and «Strategic Air Forces», of the Overseas Medal with bar «Middle East» and the medal of Protection of the Territory with bar «Jupiter».

Dr. Sarah B. Kapnick is the Global Head of Climate Advisory in the Commercial and Investment Bank at J.P. Morgan. In this role, she advises the bank's clients on climate, energy, biodiversity and sustainability topics. Responsible for overseeing the Firm’s climate thought leadership strategy, Dr. Kapnick leverages extensive technical and scientific expertise to drive content strategy and advise clients at the intersection of finance, climate science, and national security. She was previously with the bank’s Asset and Wealth Management division.

Prior to her current role, Dr. Kapnick was Chief Scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), responsible for guiding the programmatic focus of NOAA’s science and technology priorities. She spent a decade at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) leading research and development on seasonal to decadal variability and prediction.

Dr. Kapnick earned a Ph.D. in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and a Leaders in Sustainability Certificate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as an A.B. in Mathematics with a certificate in Finance from Princeton University. She presently serves on the nonprofit boards of Climate Central and the Woods Hole Oceanagraphic Institution. Additionally, she serves on the scientific advisory panels for the World Meteorological Organization and Food Security Leadership Council.

Dr. Jessica West is a Senior Researcher at Project Ploughshares and a leading expert on space security and global governance. Her work connects emerging technologies, conflict, and international diplomacy, with a focus on how outer space intersects with nuclear, cyber, and climate-related security. She is actively engaged in United Nations forums shaping the future of outer space governance.

Dr. Elton Qendro is the National Programme Officer of the OSCE Presence in Albania. He brings over 20 years of environmental governance experience, community engagement and crisis management in Albania.

He holds degrees in International Languages (BA) and International Relations (MA) from Albania and a Doctor Degree in Security Studies/Energy Security from Defence Academy of Albania and postgraduate studies in security society studies from Defence Academy of Sweden.

His research work is focused on energy security, energy governance and geopolitics of energy. Elton has written extensively on the development of hydropower in Albania, water conflicts, hydro diplomacy and environmental politics.

Alessandra USSORIO is Capability Development Coordinator, at the European Union Satellite Centre (SatCen) since 2007, addressing innovation, service evolution and cooperation.

She is currently in charge of the implementation of a Climate and Environment Security Data and Analysis Hub, in cooperation with the European External Action Service, the European Commission, the European Union Member States and other relevant stakeholders.

She cooperates with the European Commission on the Earth observation component of the European Union’s Space programme, Copernicus, for the implementation of the Copernicus Service in Support to EU External and Security Actions (SESA). Working on the evolution of the SESA Service, she explored how geospatial information could support Climate Security.

She is responsible for SatCen support to the European Commission for the implementation of a potential future EU Earth Observation Governmental Service in the framework of the EU Space Strategy for Security and Defence.

She is responsible for SatCen cooperation with the European Defence Agency.

Prior to that she worked for 6 years as I.T. Senior Analyst, Scientific Officer in the Nuclear Safeguards Unit – Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizens at the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC).

She holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Science.

Lead of the CGIAR Climate Security team and Senior Scientist at the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT of CGIAR, she brings over 15 years of experience in research and evaluation on land, water and food systems transformation in the context of fragility, conflict and displacement.

Her work focuses on the intersection of climate risks, conflict, displacement, and inequality, with an emphasis on generating applied evidence for anticipatory action, peacebuilding, humanitarian response and post-conflict recovery. She leads multi-country projects across Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, combining conventional and frontier methods to assess the compound impacts of climate change on food and nutrition security, forced migration, poverty, and gender-based vulnerabilities.

Dr. Katie Woodward is the Deputy Head of Research, Analysis and Lessons at the NATO Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence (CCASCOE) in Montreal, Canada. A Fellow of the UK MOD’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), Katie’s specialism is in psychology, human security, terrorism, and the social and behavioural impacts of climate change. Katie previously led the UK’s Behavioural Science Influence Programme and the Support and Sustainability Science and Technology Programme, both of which provided critical research shaping the MOD’s approach to security and sustainability.

Dr. Benjamin Pohl is Head of Programme Climate Diplomacy and Security at adelphi. He works on better understanding and communicating what global environmental changes mean for foreign, security and development policy, and on addressing the resulting challenges. His research and policy work focus on fragile contexts and transboundary water management challenges. Prior to joining adelphi in 2013, he worked at the German Foreign Office and the universities of Leiden and Aberdeen. Benjamin holds master’s in Conflict, Security and Development from King’s College London and in European Economic Studies from the College of Europe in Brugge. His PhD thesis on the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy won the inaugural EDA-Egmont Prize for research on European defence, security and strategy.

Ms. Christina Bouri is a research associate for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Before joining the Council, she interned at Harvard's Middle East Initiative and was a senior staff writer for the Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy. She holds a bachelor's degree in international relations from the University of the Pacific, where she spent a year studying at the University of Jordan in Amman, and a master's in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University. At the Council, her interests lie at the intersection of migration and humanitarian crises induced by climate change and political instability. Her most recent work has focused on the ongoing war in Gaza and the implications of the climate crisis on human security in the Middle East. She is a native speaker of Arabic and is proficient in French.

Mr. Daniel Mittermaier is a PhD candidate at the Center for Crisis Early Warning at the University of the Bundeswehr Munich. He joined the Center as a research associate in 2021 after finishing his master's degree in International Administration and Conflict Management at the University of Konstanz and a brief stay with the German development agency GIZ.

His research interests revolve around the climate-conflict-nexus and the improvement of conflict forecasting models. For the last two years, his main project has been the development of the Climate-Conflict-Vulnerability-Index (CCVI) for the German Federal Foreign Office in cooperation with the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research.

Emil is a Research Fellow at the Planetary Security Initiative and the EU & Global Affairs Unit of the Clingendael Institute. His area of expertise revolves around the geopolitical and diplomatic implications of climate change and its effects on security and development. He covers topics related to resilience, defence and strategic dependencies. He holds a MSc in International Security and Law from the University of Southern Denmark, in addition to a MSc in Governance of Sustainability from Leiden University. Prior to joining the Clingendael Institute, he worked at a non-governmental organization in Denmark focused on the green energy transition and critical resource supply chains.

Jennifer Jordan-Saifi, M.V.O., MBA is Chief Executive Officer of the Sustainable Markets Initiative, a global organisation that mobilises the private sector to put sustainability at the heart of global value creation.

His Majesty King Charles III, a champion of sustainability for over 50 years, launched the Sustainable Markets Initiative (when he was Prince of Wales) in 2020.

From 2018 to 2023, Ms. Jordan-Saifi served as Assistant Private Secretary to The King covering foreign affairs, the Commonwealth, and supporting His Majesty’s sustainability leadership on the world stage. In this role, she established the Sustainable Markets Initiative, developed its guiding mandates, the Terra Carta and Astra Carta, and its storytelling platform RETV.

Working for the Government of Canada (2008-2018), Ms. Jordan-Saifi led on a wide range of foreign policy priorities and initiatives, including United Nations Strategic Policy and Reform and as negotiator for the Sustainable Development Goals. From 2000-2008 she served with the ICRC, the UN, international/local NGOs and as a journalist in the Middle East building local capacity to enable social enterprise, market development, and community-based design.

Ms. Laura Birkman is Director of the Climate, Water, and Food Security Program and a member of the Management Team at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS). She leads national and international initiatives at the intersection of environmental change and security. As a senior partner in the award-winning Water, Peace, and Security (WPS) partnership, she helps develop innovative tools to detect and mitigate water-related conflict risks. She also contributes to international security dialogue through the International Military Council on Climate and Security (IMCCS), a global network of military and security experts advancing climate-informed policy and conflict prevention.

Laura is well-versed in facilitating cross-sectoral engagement on complex security challenges and regularly contributes to high-level dialogues on climate and instability. Before joining HCSS, she was Principal Consultant at Ecorys, an international research and consulting firm, where she co-founded the Security and Justice unit and led EU-funded projects on disaster risk management.

Earlier in her career, she served with the Dutch government in policy roles related to food security, biodiversity, and agri-trade, representing the Netherlands at the UN CBD and FAO. She holds degrees from Harvard University, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of St. Andrews, and is a former NAF-Fulbright and Huygens Scholar.

Kimberley R. Miner is a scientist, professor, author, and motivational speaker who has traveled to the Earth's most extreme environments to understand how the planet is changing. Her team's work has reached audiences globally through BBC News, The New York Times, GQ, The Today Show, and a Guinness World Record. She is a fellow with the National Institutes of Health and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and works at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Caroline Baxter is the Director of the Converging Risks Lab and a Senior Advisor at the Center for Climate and Security, both institutes within the Council on Strategic Risks. From 2021 to 2024, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Education and Training, in which capacity she served as the principal senior authority on the development of DoD policy relating to the cognitive and physical preparations required by the Joint Force. In this role, Baxter created and led numerous high-visibility coalitions charged with addressing foundational challenges facing the armed forces. Among these was the Climate Literacy Sub-Working Group (CLSWG) that reported to the Deputy Secretary of Defense. Under Baxter’s leadership, the CLSWG devised a path-breaking methodology to baseline and grow mission-centric knowledge of climate change, thereby climate-informed operational resilience. Baxter also spearheaded the creation of the DoD Climate Resilience Portal, the first-ever online resource to provide relevant climate change data and information to the Total Force. Prior to her time in government, Baxter spent over a decade conducting research on operational strategy, military doctrine, and operational readiness at the RAND Corporation. Baxter holds a B.A. with honors in International Relations from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, and an M.A. in International Security Policy from the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. Baxter is a recipient of the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the highest award presented by the DoD to political appointees.

Mr. Tom Ellison is Deputy Director of the Center for Climate and Security (CCS). He helps manage the Military Responses to Climate Hazards (MiRCH) tracker, as well as broader work on the security implications of food and water crises, migration, climate mis/disinformation, geoengineering, and the energy transition.

He is published and quoted in a range of outlets, such as Lawfare, Just Security, National Public Radio, PBS NewsHour, and TRT World. Prior to joining CCS, Tom spent a decade in the US intelligence community, where he helped expand analysis of the security and foreign policy implications of climate change for senior policymakers across the US government. Prior to that, he received commendations for intelligence analysis of terrorist threats, insurgencies, and political turmoil during the Arab Spring.

Dr. Daniele Visioni is an Assistant Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. His main area of research is global climate modeling and the behavior and impacts of stratospheric aerosols, both on atmospheric composition and on surface climate, especially related to explosive volcanic eruptions and to proposals to deliberately inject aerosols in the stratosphere to potentially ameliorate the impacts of climate change. He’s the co-chair of the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP), and the co-chair of the World Climate Research Programme Lighthouse Activity on Climate Intervention Research, through which he collaborates with research groups worldwide to improve the assessments of various Climate Interventions.

Dr. Andrew Heffernan holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Ottawa where he is a adjunct professor specializing in International Relations and comparative politics. He is also Climate Associate at the Information Integrity Lab, Rapporteur for the Forum on Information and Democracy, and a regular contributor to the Centre for International Governance Innovation. Andrew is active in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and is also Chair of the African Studies Association’s Emerging Scholar Network.

Dr. Tom Deligiannis is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Global Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada. His research focuses on the peace and conflict implications of human pressure on the natural environment, particularly qualitative research linking environmental change and violent conflict.

Dr. Deligiannis is the Vice-President of the Climate Security Association of Canada, a fellow of the Balsillie School of International Affairs, and a member of the Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change.

Since 2022, Tom has been a member of NATO’s Research Task Group on the Effects of Climate Change on Security (SAS-182) and a member of the Coordinating Group for Project CASA, Climate and Security Action through Civil-Military Cooperation in Climate-Related Emergencies. Dr. Deligiannis has conducted research on environmental conflict in Latin America and Europe.

Joshua Elliott is the Chief Scientist of Renaissance Philanthropy. Joshua has led innovation across science, government, and philanthropy for over 15 years. Most recently, he was a Programme Director at Quadrature Climate Foundation, where he developed strategies for solar radiation management (SRM), carbon removal, and climate vulnerability and resilience. He also founded BiTS, a nonprofit science accelerator; built an innovation skunkworks within Project InnerSpace; and incubated the ARC initiative to accelerate responsible R&D for future climate emergencies.

Previously, Joshua served as a Program Manager at DARPA’s Information Innovation Office, where he directed nearly $600M in federal R&D. His programs focused on AI for science, including computational and climate science, food-water-conflict systems, and synthetic biology. He also explored areas like AI for education, artificial social intelligence, multi-species teaming (humans, drones, canines), and AI to discover critical minerals and natural hydrogen. Before DARPA, he spent nearly a decade in academia at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Lab, working on climate impacts, extreme events, and modeling in agriculture, hydrology, energy systems, migration, and conflict. He co-founded the Center for Robust Decision-making in Climate and Energy Policy, initiated the Global Gridded Crop Modeling Intercomparison Project (GGCMIP), and launched a climate informatics startup.

Joshua holds a PhD in theoretical high-energy physics from McGill University.

Dr. Christine Nam is a senior climate scientist with over 15 years of experience working with satellite retrievals and climate models in an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary environment. Her background is in mathematics, atmospheric science, and space.

Dr. Nam’s work focuses on the extraction and customization of indices from climate model projections to help assess and identify climate risks impacting operations in a variety of sectors including critical infrastructure, health, coastal tourism, and space, just to name a few.

Ms. Lily Boland is the Strategic Foresight Fellow at the Converging Risks Lab (CRL), an institute of the Council on Strategic Risks (CSR). Based at CRL, Lily works to integrate strategic foresight and wargaming methodology and tools across CSR’s three institutes and topical portfolios.

These include leading structured brainstorming sessions about the future of topical and convergent risk landscapes, designing and running scenario exercises, employing backcasting methods, developing foresight frameworks for emerging fields, and policy/matrix wargaming.

She is a graduate of the Dual Master’s Degree Programme Intelligence and International Security at Sciences Po Paris School of International Affairs and the War Studies Department at King’s College London. She has a background in wargame design, facilitation and analysis, as well as intelligence gathering disciplines, particularly OSINT-driven investigations.

Dr. Alexander S. Kolker is an oceanographer and climate scientist with global experience, much of it related to climate change in the coastal zone. This year, he served as a fellow with NATO's Climate Change and Security Center Of Excellence, where he examined climate impacts to coastal regions of the Arctic and High North and their implications for global security.

Dr. Kolker is an Associate Professor at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium where his research interests include climate change, sea level rise, river-ocean dynamics, air pollution, and the global energy transition. He also runs the Coastal Climates Institute; a consultancy focused on climate science and climate impacts in the coastal zone. Dr. Kolker served as a Fulbright Scholar and a Fulbright Specialist in Morocco, where he worked with collaborators to study the climate change, sea level rise, and coastal sustainability in North Africa.

Alexander S. Kolker has participated in multiple governmental science advisory boards including the Science Advisory Group for Louisiana's Governor's Climate Initiative, the Framework Development Team for Louisiana's Coastal Master Plan, and a National Academy of Sciences committee on the evolution of the Gulf of Mexico. Dr. Kolker has published extensively in the academic literature, penned opinion pieces for leading publications, and regularly speaks to the national and international media. He has been appeared in outlets that include the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, National Public Radio, and The New Orleans Times-Picayune/Advocate. Alexander S. Kolker received Doctoral degree from Stony Brook University, State University of New York and he lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

Dr. Dustin Whalen, a scientist with Natural Resources Canada has participated in over 50 field expeditions to the Western Canadian Arctic to study coastal dynamics in a changing climate. His research is focused on the impacts of climate change to: Inuit people, communities, marine eco-systems, and industrial development. Over that time, and through shared experiences, extensive consultation and knowledge transfer with the Inuvialuit he has gained extensive holistic and scientific knowledge and contributed to the study and long-term monitoring of coastal erosion processes and oceanographic drivers of change. He is a recipient of the Arctic Inspiration Prize for the Tuktoyaktuk Community Climate Resiliency project (TCCRP); a community-based project centered around building capacity and inspiring future leaders in the North to not only understand but have the tools to adapt to an unpredictable future in this accelerated change of landscape and way of life. Dustin has published widely on coastal erosion, permafrost–ocean interactions, Arctic carbon flux, and community-based research contributing to both science and policy discussions on climate resilience in the North.

Ms. Kristina Rimkunaite is Subject Matter Expert at NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence (ENSEC COE) and Diplomat at Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania. The ENSEC COE mission is to support NATO, Nations and Partners to meet the challenges of a dynamic energy security environment by addressing resilience, operational energy efficiency, and critical energy infrastructure protection.

Ms. Rimkunaite worked with extensive scope of different energy projects from 2007. The sectors covered include oil, natural gas, shale gas, chemistry industries, and RES (e-fuels, wind, hydro, solar, biomass, hydrogen). As economist she planned “Achema Group” Klaipeda LNG import terminal studies and case analysis. During her time with “Ignitis Group” Ms. Rimkunaite had different positions, among which was group’s Risk Management Lead, whose tasks included protection of four national Critical Energy Infrastructure (CEI) sites. While at “Ignitis” (former LITGAS) she set up small scale LNG value chain in Klaipėda.

Ms. Rimkunaite also coordinated Lithuania’s National Energy and Climate Plan preparation for European Commission at Ministry of Energy.

Using her vast practical knowledge she currently focuses on EU energy sector policies and strategies, with emphasis on energy transition, climate and their impact on global and national energy security.

Ms. Penny Beames works as a Water and Strategic Vulnerabilities Specialist at the University of Alabama’s Global Water Security Center. She has 15 years of international professional and academic experience in water, climate change, transboundary water sharing, and the effects of dams on human and non-human systems. Master’s degrees in social science and physical science allow her to act as a bridge between these domains.

At the Global Water Security Center, Penny maps biophysical and socio-political links between water and conflict across the globe for clients in US national security spaces. GWSC projects investigate near-term risks associated with anomalies in sub-seasonal to seasonal forecasts and incorporate the implications of changes to water availability associated with climate projections. Her work has uncovered links between water and cartel violence, communal tensions, and geopolitical power shifts.

Penny’s recent academic publication showcases the framework she created for GWSC to identify and communicate links between water and conflict.

Beames, P. L., et al. (2025). Pathways to instability: A synthetic framework to parse connections between water and conflict. Environment and Security: https://doi.org/10.1177/27538796251340790

Lennard de Klerk (1973) is lead author of the Initiative on GHG accounting of war. He created this Initiative initially to show the impact of Russia’s war on Ukraine on carbon emissions and the damage the war causes to the climate system. In later stages the Initiative expanded its working field to other armed conflicts and to military emissions in general. Lennard developed climate projects under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce CO2 emissions in the heavy industry in Ukraine and Russia. He built the Irota EcoLodge resort in Eastern Hungary, which is the first and so far the only carbon-neutral accommodation in Central and Eastern Europe. Lennard holds a degree in electrical engineering from Delft University of Technology and studied at Berlin technical university and the Moscow Energy Institute. In addition to his native Dutch, he speaks English, German, Hungarian, Russian, Ukrainian and Italian.

Dr. Svitlana Krakovska is a Ukrainian climate scientist recognized internationally for linking science with urgent global action. Nature named her among its “10 people who helped shape science in 2022” in a profile titled Voice for Ukraine, highlighting her role as head of Ukraine’s delegation to the IPCC during the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Her speech at that session, cited by Politico and The Washington Post, drew a clear link between fossil fuel dependence, climate change, and war enablers, galvanizing support for energy sanctions. In March 2025, the WCRP Academy named her Scientist of the Month. She is also widely known for her science communication in Ukraine and globally.

Dr. Krakovska heads the Laboratory of Applied Climatology at the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute of the State Emergency Service and National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and holds a PhD in Geophysics.

She began her career with bin cloud models, pioneering their application for Antarctica. With over 30 years of expertise in meteorology, climate modeling, and adaptation, she has served since 2013 as Ukraine’s Vice National Focal Point of the IPCC. In the Sixth Assessment Cycle, she was Review Editor of the 1.5 °C Special Report, Contributing Author of the Summary for Policymakers, and Lead Author of several WGI AR6 products. She overwintered at the Ukrainian Antarctic station “Akademik Vernadsky” in 1997/98 and was awarded by the decree of the President of Ukraine the Order of Princess Olga (Third Class) in 2021. Currently, she serves on the UN Taskforce Expert Group on Net Zero and the UNCCD Science-Policy Interface.

In April 2025, Dr. Svitlana Krakovska was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences as an International Member – the first and only scientist living and working in Ukraine to hold this distinction.

Ms. Jessica Olcott Yllemo is an expert in climate security, emergency response/disaster preparedness, and security cooperation programs. She has more than 18 years of experience and has designed, executed, and evaluated more than 50 domestic and international missions at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels. She is an expert in Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) processes and wargaming; chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) response; and civil-military affairs.

Ms. Yllemo currently serves as the CNA Field Representative/Research Scientist embedded at US SECOND FLEET. She is also an Executive Committee member of the Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change (GMACCC) and regularly publishes on climate and national security issues. She previously served as the Director, Climate Security Programs at the American Security Project and as a 2016-2017 Fulbright Public Policy Fellow to Kosovo.

Rikki Parsons is a Principal Wargaming Analyst, leading efforts to provide strategic decision support at Dstl. He had a previous career at a major defence contractor where he led corporate strategy efforts within the training and education business there.

In his current role, Rikki has led the design and execution of table-top exercises and wargames, alongside long-term methodological improvement research. He has published two ‘boxed up’ wargames since joining Dstl and hopes to get the opportunity to do more.

Paul Rushton is senior Policy Officer in NATO’s Defence Policy and Planning (DPP) Division, Resilience Section, and is responsible for coordinating the implementation of NATO’s Climate Change and Security Action Plan. Before joining IHC, he was a team leader in NATO’s Arms Control, Disarmament, and Non-Proliferation Centre, where he coordinated the development of NATO’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Defence Policy.

He previously served as First Secretary at the Joint Delegation of Canada to NATO, and has worked as a project lead on programming on environmental security, conflict resolution and crisis management with Global Affairs Canada.

Before joining GAC, he worked with the UN and diverse NGOs on food security, livelihoods and climate change in fragile and conflict-affected contexts, including Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar and Nepal. He holds an MSc in Sustainable Development from the University of London, an MA in International Peace and Conflict Studies from the UN University for Peace in Costa Rica, and a BA in Political Science and Economics from Simon Fraser University in Canada.

Andrea Gilli is Lecturer in Strategic Studies at the University of St Andrews, Associate Fellow at Bocconi University's Institute for European Policy-Making, Senior Advisor to the Office of Undersecretary of State for Defense in Italy, Expert Mentor of NATO DIANA and Non-Resident Associate Fellow at the NATO Defense College -- where he previously served as Senior Researcher. In the past, Andrea has worked at or conducted research at Stanford University, Harvard University, European Union Institute for Security Studies, U.S. Department of Defense, Italian Air Force, as well as both the semiconductor and the defense industry.

Andrew Crooks is an analyst within the Defence Wargaming Centre at Dstl. He has also previously worked at the Defence Experimentation and Wargaming Hub at MOD Southwick Park. Andrew has designed and run table-top exercises and wargames on a variety of topics, including climate change, cyber security, deterrence, and the maritime environment for both domestic and international stakeholders. He holds Master’s degrees in Geography as well as International Security and Terrorism.

As Chief Impact Officer, Andrew oversees the sustainable development, humanitarian, ethics and human rights portfolio at Planet, a breakthrough geospatial imaging organization that has deployed the largest constellation of Earth-observing satellites in history.

Together, these satellites image the entire surface of the Earth, every day, in high resolution. When analyzed with advanced AI techniques, this imagery has transformational value for addressing a host of global challenges, including monitoring peace and conflict, improving agriculture, delivering sustainable development, ensuring human rights, predicting food insecurity, assessing climate change, delivering disaster response, and improving conservation, among many others. Andrew is also the author of Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back, which has been published in more than a dozen countries worldwide.

Erin Sikorsky is Director of the Center for Climate and Security (CCS), and the International Military Council on Climate and Security (IMCCS). She is the author of Climate Change on the Battlefield: International Military Responses to the Climate Crisis. Previously, Erin served as Deputy Director of the Strategic Futures Group on the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in the United States, where she co-authored the quadrennial Global Trends report and led the US intelligence community’s environmental and climate security analysis.

She was the founding chair of the Climate Security Advisory Council, a Congressionally mandated group designed to facilitate coordination between the intelligence community and US government scientific agencies.

Prior to her position on the National Intelligence Council, she worked as a senior analyst in the US intelligence community for over a decade, leading teams examining conflict and instability risks in Africa and the Middle East, and won the National Intelligence Analysis Award.

Ms. Sikorsky is an adjunct professor at George Mason University, where she designed and teaches a course on climate change and national security. She is also a contributing editor at Lawfare, a member of the Climate Migration Council, a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the advisory board of the Smith College Center for Environment, Ecological Design and Sustainability.

She previously served on the Department of Interior’s Advisory Council for Climate Adaptation Science, as a consultant to the Defense Science Board, and as a fellow at UPenn’s Perry World House.

She is regularly featured in television interviews on CNN, the BBC, and the Weather Channel, as well as public radio shows and podcasts such as The World, Here and Now, Chatter and America Adapts.

She has published articles in a range of outlets, including Foreign Policy, Survival, Lawfare, War on the Rocks, The Hill, Just Security, and The Cipher Brief. Ms. Sikorsky earned a Master of International Affairs at Columbia University, and a B.A. in government from Smith College.

Dr. Bruno Charbonneau (PhD, Queen’s University) is Professor of International Relations at the Royal Military College Saint-Jean, Senior Scientific Advisor at the NATO Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence, and founding President of the Climate Security Association of Canada.

He is Team Leader of the NATO Research Task Group SAS-182 on the consequences of climate change on security and was awarded a 2025 NATO Chief Scientist Grant for the project ‘Foresight: planning for low-carbon warfare’. He has published extensively on climate security and defence, and on international conflict management in West Africa.

Aniello Russo has been a Senior Scientist at CMRE since 2014. He has been leading the Climate Change and Security Analysis Project since 2023, and he was the Leader of the Anti-Submarine Warfare Environmental Acoustic Support in a Rapidly Thawing Arctic Ocean Project in 2022.

During his previous services at the Marche Polytechnic University (Italy) and at the Italian National Research Council, he taught graduate and undergraduate classes in Physical Oceanography, Fundaments of Meteorology and Climatology, Climate Hazards, and tutored several Ph.D. students and Post-Docs on related research topics.

He has more than 30 years of experience in oceanography and climate, and has authored or co-authored over 100 scientific publications and technical reports. He participated in over 20 oceanographic campaigns, four of which in the Ross Sea (Antarctica), and has been Scientist in Charge of CMRE sea trials in the Nordic Seas and Arctic region on board the NATO Research Vessel Alliance.

Eva is the Founder & President of Civil Protection Youth Canada (CPYC), a not-for profit organisation focused on building community resilience and disaster readiness through youth leadership.

Eva was born and raised in Germany and immigrated to Canada in 2003. She earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Regensburg, where she studied English and Geography. Her academic background, combined with hands-on volunteer experience in Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) with Germany’s civil protection agency, Technisches Hilfswerk (THW), sparked a deep interest in climatology, geology, urban planning, and the societal impacts of disasters. This foundation inspired a lifelong commitment to building disaster readiness and resilience.

As an expert on citizen-based disaster response, Eva publishes, teaches, lectures, and advises extensively on the subject. She has been advocating for the creation of a Canadian federal agency for disaster response and recovery for over a decade. Hers is a proven approach, though novel to Canada. It is based on training and equipping volunteer detachments across the country in disaster response technical skills. Eva regularly briefs stakeholders on the concept of a civil protection agency, including ministers, MPs, senior officials, emergency management professionals, and first responders. Eva’s expertise comes from decades of training, experience, and research.

She served with the German Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW), an all-hazards government civil protection organization based on volunteer experts, which she sees as an exemplary model to be tailored to Canadian needs. She has led various Canadian delegations on study-visits to the THW in Germany and she has initiated and hosted discussions between senior THW officials and Canadian stakeholders.

The most recent expert exchange in Jan 2025 she hosted through CPYC, together with the Canadian Armed Forces Canadian Joint Operations Command (CJOC). It resulted in a forthcoming report describing why a Canadian citizen-based civil protection approach is what we need and what is required for it to be successful in Canada.

Marie Sophie Mayer is a Political Scientist specializing in the climate-security nexus, with experience at the United Nations, the European Commission, and the Munich Security Conference. She holds a Research Master’s from Maastricht University and a Bachelor’s degree from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

Her research focuses on climate security and environmental governance in international and European politics, with recent work published in European Security.

Dr. Giovanni Fusina is the Natural Hazards portfolio manager at Defence Research Development Canada Centre for Security Science (CSS). In his role at CSS, he is responsible for the formulation and execution of several research projects related to understanding the risks associated with natural hazards and proposing S&T to mitigate those risks.

Before joining CSS, Giovanni worked as a defence scientist at Defence Research and Development Canada’s Ottawa Research Centre and Toronto Research Centre conducting research in diverse areas such as large-scale modelling and simulation, autonomy and control, complex systems, human factors, and hydrodynamic modelling. Giovanni holds a Ph.D. in Aerospace Science and Engineering from the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies and a bachelor’s degree in applied science and engineering also from the University of Toronto.