Dr. Barbara Buchner is Global Managing Director of Climate Policy Initiative. Named one of the 20 most influential women in climate change and one of the 100 most influential people in climate policy, Barbara advises leaders on climate, energy, and land use investments around the world.
Barbara directs the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance (the Lab). The Lab’s public-private approach solicits, shapes, and tests cutting edge climate finance instruments that resolve financing barriers hindering alternative energy, adaptation, and land use projects. Instruments from the Lab have mobilized over USD 4 billion for sustainable development in developing economies.
She is also the lead author on the Global Landscape of Climate Finance, which has set the benchmark for climate finance tracking, and Climate Finance in 2013-14 and the USD 100 billion goal – a joint report with the OECD that played a seminal role in the lead up to the Paris Agreement. In addition, Barbara built and directs the San Giorgio Group, which brings together climate finance leaders to engage on critical issues that require collective effort to accelerate the transition to more sustainable, lower-emission economies.
Barbara is a recognized expert in climate policy and climate finance and regularly speaks at high-level international events. She has presented at the Summit for a New Global Financial Pact, the Climate Finance Ministerial, the World Future Energy Summit, the IRENA Assembly Ministerial Meeting, the One Planet Summit, and the BNEF Future of Energy Summit. She has also contributed to discussions at COPs, multiple Climate Weeks, and through the GCF Private Sector Facility, among many other platforms.
Barbara holds several prominent academic and advisory roles. She is Professor in Practice for Sustainable Finance at the University of London’s SOAS Centre for Sustainable Finance and serves as Program Director of the Climate Change and Energy Program at the Australian National University. She is a member of the Fast Infra Group Board of Directors and sits on the advisory boards of the Schwarzenegger Climate Initiative and Egypt’s Financial Regulatory Authority’s Regional Center for Sustainable Finance (RCSF). She also serves on the advisory committee of the Mitigation Action Facility.
Her expertise is widely sought in influential international forums. She is a member of the Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance, the G20 Task Force on a Global Mobilization against Climate Change, the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group’s Independent High-Level Expert Group, and the Finance Sector Expert Group for the UNFCCC’s Race to Zero and Race to Resilience campaigns. She is part of the Expert Group on Climate and SDG Synergies convened by UNDESA and the UNFCCC, the UN Environment Programme’s Adaptation Gap Report Steering Committee, and the Wise Persons Group under the Green Guarantee Group. She also contributes to One Planet Lab, created by President Macron to promote innovative solutions and strategic action on global climate challenges.
Previously Barbara served as a Senior Energy and Environment Analyst at the International Energy Agency (IEA) and as a Senior Researcher at the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) where she was involved in a number of activities related to FEEM’s Climate Change Policy and Modelling Unit in the field of environmental economics. She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Graz and was a Visiting Scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Originally from Austria, Barbara is based in San Francisco.
