Chris Brooks

Job title:

Head of Global Philanthropy

Area of work:

Philanthropy and partnership. Both are critical to delivering the investment and impact to drive forward the climate agenda.

What will you be doing at COP28?

I am attending to meet foundations and philanthropists who are focussed on climate change, to build their relationship with the University of Leeds, with a view to generating funding and building wider partnerships.

What are the big issues that COP28 needs to address? What are your hopes for the negotiations?

It needs to be an honest stocktake of where we are, and our progress – or not – towards net zero & 1.5. We also need to see agreements and progressive actions within the conference from governments, who are critical to this, and also fossil fuel companies who, with it being in Dubai, will be very present. We also need to see a just energy transition where there is a real focus on global equity.

What’s your message to world leaders at COP28?

Please let’s acknowledge the truth, we are not on track, and our generation, and future generations are seriously under threat. Let’s be honest about this and accelerate progress towards net zero and cleaner energy, doing this in a just way globally.

Do you have any tips about climate action that you can share?

Not a tip, it’s obvious but always needs reiterating, we are in this together, so we need collective action: from individual activism, which is crucial to generating awareness, to action to impact at scale from global leaders.