SPEAKERS & PRESENTERS
Honourable John Briceño
Prime Minister, Belize
President of the 8th session of the SIDSDOCK Assembly
The Hon. John Briceño is the sixth and current Prime Minister of Belize, having won re-election on March 2025, for a second term of office. On 26 September 2024, at the eighth session of the SIDS DOCK Assembly, Prime Minister Briceño was unanimously elected President of the eighth session, for a one-year term.
SIDS DOCK represents 32 Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Low-lying Developing States and Coastal Cities. He served as leader of the People’s United Party (PUP) and the Leader of the Opposition, from 2008 to 2011. Previously, he was Deputy Prime Minister from 1998 to 2007. On February 8, 2016, he again became Leader of the Opposition in Belize. A decade in government, Prime Minister Briceño served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Natural Resources and the Environment. He also assisted the Prime Minister with many of his international obligations. He is the first Prime Minister who is not from Belize City. Born in Orange Walk Town, He is married to Rosanna and has three children, and is a graduate of the University of Texas, Austin, USA.
Hon Feleti Penitala Teo, OBE
Prime Minister, Tuvalu
The Hon Feleti Penitala Teo, OBE, is the 14th Prime Minister of Tuvalu and was appointed on 26 February 2024. Prior to his appointment, the Hon. Prime Minister had a long and distinguished career as a national and regional civil servant. He served as the Executive Director for the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia from March 2015 to March 2023. Prior to this, he was appointed as the Interim Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) in Suva, Fiji from February 2014 to February 2015. He served as Deputy Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum in Suva, Fiji from May 2007 to December 2013 and as Acting Secretary General from October 2007 to October 2008. From November 2000 to November 2006, he was appointed as the Director General of the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency in Honiara, Solomon Islands. Prior to his service to the region, the Hon. Prime Minister served the Government of Tuvalu as Attorney General from January 1991 to October 2000 and as Crown Counsel from January 1987 to January 1991. The Hon. Prime Minister holds a Master of Laws from the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia in 1996; a Certificate in Government Legal Advisor’s Course from the University of London, United Kingdom in 1990; and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1986. He was admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand in 1986. He attended St Andrew’s College in Christchurch, New Zealand and was awarded the Senior Dux Prize and A Bursary Certificate in 1982. He was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2013.
Profile link: https://forumsec.org/forum-leaders/hon-feleti-penitala-teo-obe
His Excellency Mr. V. Va’inga Tone,
Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Tonga to the United Nations, Chair of the SIDS DOCK Executive Council
His Excellency Mr. Viliami Va’inga Tone is the Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Tonga to the United Nations, and presented his credentials to UN Secretary‑General António Guterres in July 2018. Prior to his appointment as Permanent Representative of Tonga to the UN, Ambassador Tone was his country’s Secretary for Foreign Affairs, from 2013 to 2017, having served in that position from 2007 to 2010, and Lord Privy Seal in the Palace Office from 2011 to 2013. From 2005 to 2006, Ambassador Tone served as Acting Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs and he sat in Cabinet, Privy Council and Parliament on several occasions. He was Deputy Secretary and Chief of Protocol at the Ministry from 2002 to 2006 and acted as Secretary for Foreign Affairs on several occasions from 2002 to 2004. Also at the Ministry, he served as Principal Assistant Secretary from 2000 to 2001 and as Military Liaison Officer from 1999 to 2000. Ambassador Tone holds a Master of Military Studies from the Marine Corps University at Quantico, United States; a Master of Commerce in economics and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Wollongong University, Australia; and a certificate in diplomatic studies from Oxford University, United Kingdom.
Hon. Flavien P. Joubert
Minister of Agriculture, Climate Change and Environment, Republic of Seychelles
Hon. Flavien P. was appointed Minister for Agriculture, Climate Change and Energy, on 4th November 2020. Since 1996, he has worked in the Ministry of Environment, and has held and served in several key posts including Director General for Wildlife Enforcement and Permits, CEO of the Seychelles National Parks Authority and CEO of the Landscape and Waste Management Authority. Mr. Joubert has served on several boards such as the Planning Authority and Seychelles Petroleum as company Director and on Boards of national importance such as the Pesticide Control Board, Licensing Authority and Seychelles islands Foundation. Through his university studies, he re-discovered one of the rarest bat species in the country, and has, throughout his time at the Ministry, promoted research and conservation on the bat species. He has co-written two papers on that subject. He has also played instrumental roles in several initiatives that has to do with chemical safety in Seychelles. On the international arena, Minister Joubert has represented Seychelles in many fora related to chemicals and waste and was focal points for the Basel and Stockholm Conventions. He successfully completed his HND and graduate studies at the Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom, and Masters studies at York University, Canada. During his time at the Department of Environment, he gained various competencies especially in oil spill combat and operation of sewage treatment plants. Minister Joubert is married and has two children.
Profile link: https://macce.gov.sc/about-macce/the-minister/
H.E. Mr. Sepp Schellhorn
State Secretary at the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs
H.E. Mr. Sepp Schellhorn has been State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs of the Republic of Austria since 3 March 2025. He grew up in his parents’ business and first attended the hotel management school in Bad Hofgastein before spending his apprenticeship years in Italy, France and the United States. After his return, he took over his parents’ business in 1996, graduated from the business academy in 1997 and went on to open several restaurants. H.E. Sepp Schellhorn entered politics in 1989 as a substitute member of the Goldegg municipal council. He was President of the Austrian Hotel Association (ÖHV) from 2003 to 2013 and was sworn in as a member of the National Council in 2014. From 2016 to 2021, he held various positions at federal and state level for NEOS. H.E. Sepp Schellhorn returned to the National Council in 2024 after resigning his seat in 2021.
Profile link: https://www.bmeia.gv.at/en/the-ministry/the-state-secretary
His Excellency Mr. Carlos Fuller
Permanent Representative of Belize to the United Nations, Secretary/Treasurer For The SIDS DOCK Foundation Board, Member SIDS DOCK Foundation Finance & Investment Committee
H.E. Mr Carlos Fuller is the current Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Belize to the United Nations in New York. He is a Vice President of the Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and has served as the Chairman of its Subsidiary Body on Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and served on the Joint Implementation Supervisory Committee (JISC) and the Consultative Group of Experts (CGE). His previous positions include Chief Meteorologist of the National Meteorological Service of Belize, and International and Regional Liaison Officer at the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre. He has served as the President of Regional Association IV of the World Meteorological Organization. He was chief negotiator for climate change for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) from 2019 to 2020, a special advisor to the President of the WMO Commission on Climatology from 2018 to 2020, Chairman of the UNFCCC Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technical Advice from 2016 to 2017 and Permanent Representative of Belize to the Geneva-based WMO from 1990 to 2009. He holds the George Price Lifetime Achievement Award for Emergency Management and the Officer of the Order the British Empire (OBE) for public service. Mr. Fuller holds a Bachelor of Science degree in meteorology from Florida State University in the United States, where he studied from 1977 to 1979, and is the author of several articles dealing with weather and climate science.
Profile link: https://press.un.org/en/2021/bio5387.doc.htm
Mr. Ciyong Zou
Deputy to the Director General and the Managing Director of the Directorate of Technical Cooperation and Sustainable Industrial Development, UNIDO
The Directorate of Technical Cooperation and Sustainable Industrial Development oversees the Organization’s normative contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals, in addition to supporting and advancing the application of strategies and interventions for sustainable industrial development in the environment, energy, and SME areas. Advancing competitiveness and job creation are also key impact dimensions for the Directorate, in addition to the advancement of digitalization and artificial intelligence. Mr Zou is also the Director General’s Special Representative for the G77 and China. At UNIDO since 2013, Zou is the architect of UNIDO’s Programme for Country Partnership, and has guided the Organization’s field and strategic engagements. Before joining UNIDO, he performed multiple roles, including as Deputy Director General of International Department at the Chinese Ministry of Finance, Alternate to the Chinese Executive Director at the World Bank, and Global Environmental Facility Operational Focal Point for China.
Zou holds a Ph.D. in Economics from China’s Ministry of Finance Graduate School, Research Institute for Fiscal Science. Profile link: https://www.unido.org/persons/ciyong-zou
Mr. Axel van Trotsenburg
Senior Managing Director, responsible for Development Policy and Partnerships, World Bank
Axel van Trotsenburg is the Senior Managing Director (SMD) for the World Bank’s Development Policy and Partnerships. A Dutch-Austrian national, he is responsible for directing the World Bank’s core development and knowledge work captured by the Bank’s vertical units (People, Prosperity, Planet, Infrastructure, and Digital) and ensures its integration into lending operations, with a special focus on climate, fragility, human capital, and debt sustainability issues. He leads the Bank’s efforts to transform as a Knowledge Bank, oversees the Bank’s numerous partnerships, including the United Nations agencies, co-chairs the replenishment of the International Development Association (IDA), and represents the Bank in the G7 and G20 meetings. He also leads the Bank’s climate engagement in the context of the annual COP convenings. His focus is on unleashing knowledge, talent, partnerships and communications to enhance the Bank’s impact globally and in the client countries it serves. Prior to this position, van Trotsenburg was the Managing Director of Operations.
Profile link: https://www.worldbank.org/ext/en/who-we-are/leadership/axel-van-trotsenburg
Mr. Per Fredrik Pharo
Director for the Department of Nature, Climate and Private Sector, Norad – The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation
Mr. Per Fredrik Pharo serves as Director for the Department of Nature, Climate and Private Sector at Norad, the Norwegian Agency for Development and Cooperation. Prior to this role, Mr. Pharo served as Deputy Director of the Government of Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI), under the Norwegian Ministry of Environment, from its inception in 2008 until October 2011 when he was appointed as Director. NICFI was set up to deliver on the Norwegian Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg’s Bali promise to annually spend up to 3 billion Norwegian kroner to contribute towards reducing the greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries. Before joining NICFI, Mr. Pharo worked at McKinsey & Company’s Oslo office; at the Norwegian Ministry of Defense (on security policy, defense policy, and defense transformation), and as a researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Defense Studies. He has a Candidatus Philologiae degree in history from the University of Oslo, Norway, and a BA in International and US politics and history from Augustana College, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA.
Profile link: https://pitchbook.com/profiles/person/407239-21P#overview
Mr. Rémi Gruet
Chief Executive Officer, Ocean Energy Europe
Rémi Gruet is the chief executive officer of Ocean Energy Europe, a network of ocean energy professionals including Europe’s utilities, industrialists and research institutes. Gruet joined the European trade body in 2013 where he was the policy and operations director until 2014. He has authored and co-authored numerous reports regarding renewable energies, climate and environmental policies, including the “Wind energy and Climate policy”, or the recent “Ocean Energy Forum Roadmap” and “Powering Homes” reports. He is also a visiting lecturer on EU energy policy at the University for Political Science in Lille. Previously, he served as senior policy advisor at WindEurope for five years, an association promoting the use of wind energy in Brussels. Before that, he worked in the European Parliament for four years as policy advisor. He holds an MA in Environmental Management from the Free University of Brussels (ULB) and a bachelor’s degree in European Business from KEDGE Business School of Bordeaux.
Profile link: https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/contributor_profile/remi-gruet-ocean-energy-europe/
Mr. Martin Lugmayr
Industrial Development Expert, Sustainable and Just Energy Transitions Unit, Division of Energy and Climate Action, UNIDO
Mr. Martin Lugmayr, Industrial Development Expert, Sustainable and Just Energy Transitions Unit, United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO). Mr. Lugmayr spearheads the Global Network of Regional Sustainable Energy Centers (GN-SEC) program and manages a global portfolio of sustainable energy projects in least developed countries (LDCs) and small island developing states (SIDS). Before joining UNIDO in 2010, he was responsible for the energy program at the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and worked on international energy and development issues at the Austrian Federal Ministry of European and International Affairs. Before he was an expert and lecturer on European integration and media consultant. Mr. Lugmayr holds an MSc in Renewable Energy Technologies from Vienna University of Technology and an MA in Political Science from the University of Innsbruck.
Profile link: https://sadcenergyweek.org/speaker/mr-martin-lugmayr/
Mr. Solomone Fifita
Manager, Pacific Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (PCREEE/SPC)
Mr Solomone Fifita is currently the Manager of the Pacific Community’s Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (PCREEE) and the SIDSDOCK Pacific Regional Coordinator. Mr. Solomone Fifita was the former the Head of the Pacific’s Regional Energy Programme, housed at the Economic Development Division of the Pacific Community in Suva, Fiji. He has served as Project Manager for regional energy and climate change projects for the Pacific Islands and prior to that he was the Energy Planner for the Kingdom of Tonga. He has served as Chief Technical Adviser, Project Manager and Team Leader for major regional energy and climate change projects for the Pacific Islands. He also was a lead author in the IPCC’s Special Report on Renewable Energy, the IPCC’s special report on the 1.5oC Mitigation Pathway and the IPCC’s 5th & 6th Assessment Reports, and a Lead Reviewer of Annex 1 Parties’ National Communications under the UNFCCC. Mr. Fifita has more than 25 years in the energy sector of the Pacific Islands and holds a Master of Science in Energy Planning and Policy. Profile link: https://www.pcreee.org/team/mr-solomone-fifita
Dr. Laurent Albert
Chief Executive Officer, Seabased Limited, Ireland
Dr. Laurent Albert joined Seabased as CEO in 2019. He is a French civil engineer and MBA who has previously held senior executive positions in Europe and Asia in both high-end tech and marine renewables in Naval Group (formerly DCNS), Naval Energies, and TechnipFMC.
Profile link: https://seabased.com/news-insights/category/Seabased+team
Ms. Valerie Herzog
Climate and Sustainability Expert and Lead of OPEC Fund’s Island Resilience Facility, OPEC Fund for International Development
Valerie Herzog is a climate and sustainability expert leading the OPEC Fund’s Island Resilience Facility from a strategic management perspective.
In this role, she is driving efforts to strengthen climate resilience in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) through innovative financing, partnerships, and policy solutions. In addition, Valerie oversees the OPEC Fund’s broader climate agenda, including its climate finance strategy and related initiatives in the green, blue, and nature-based solutions space.
Before joining the OPEC Fund, Valerie worked at the World Bank, first in the ECA Energy & Extractives Practice with a focus on clean energy transitions, and later in the Finance, Competitiveness & Innovation Global Practice, where she specialized in integrating climate considerations into financial sector strategies.
Valerie’s academic background includes studies at the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business, and she is based in Vienna.
Mr. Steven Lutz
Senior Programme Officer, Blue Carbon Lead, GRID-Arendal, Norway
Steven is the Blue Carbon Lead for GRID-Arendal, where he works to advance the concept of blue carbon as a nature-based blue economy solution to the impacts of climate change through national demonstrations and in international treaties. This includes the development and management of the Abu Dhabi Blue Carbon Demonstration Project (on behalf of Abu-Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative (AGEDI)), a global first in national coastal blue carbon scaling and uptake, and the Global Environment Facility’s Blue Forests Project (on behalf of the United Nations Environment Programme), which piloted blue carbon on the voluntary carbon market and critically championed its recognition and uptake in international climate and biodiversity treaties, and the UAE Oceanic Blue Carbon project (in partnership with AGEDI), the world’s first national science and policy assessment of oceanic blue carbon. Additionally, he developed the Norwegian Blue Forests Network and serves on the Coordinating Group of the International Partnership for Blue Carbon. Prior to his engagement with GRID-Arendal, Steven focused on marine environmental policy analysis and advocacy in the USA, including advancing blue carbon policy with the executive and legislative branches of the US government, the Global Environment Facility and in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). His career with and in the civil society, academic and legislative sectors encompass over 25 years of experience in marine science, conservation, and policy, and over 14 years of experience in blue carbon. He holds a master’s degree in Marine Affairs and Policy from the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science and his work prior to GRID-Arendal included a focus on marine protected areas, coral reef science, deep sea coral biogeography, and marine environmental policy analysis and advocacy in the USA. Profile link: https://www.grida.no/staff/21