Energy Seminar: COP27 Summary and the History of United Nations Negotiations

What is the COP? What is the UNFCCC (1992)? What was the Kyoto Protocol (1997)? What is the Paris Agreement (2015)? Why do these nations meet every year? Why did it take eighteen years to go from the Kyoto Protocol to the Paris Agreement? Arthur Lee will provide brief historical context to these climate change negotiations and provide summary highlights of the COP27 Sharm El-Sheik Implementation Plan against this historical backdrop. Further, he will provide a few forward-looking views of what will need to be further negotiated at COP28, and even COP29.

Bio

Arthur Lee is a Chevron Fellow and Senior Strategy Advisor within Chevron’s Corporate Strategy and Sustainability group. Arthur has been involved in a wide range of climate change issues from the science to global policy and business impacts from 1998 to now. He has participated in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) process since the third assessment report (2001). The IPCC recognized him and other researchers with a certificate for contributions to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize (2007).

Arthur was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce to serve as a member of the National Climate Assessment Development and Advisory Committee (2011-2014). He was also a member of the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate of the National Academy of Sciences (2008-2013). He serves on the board of directors of the International Emissions Trading Association (2014 – present).

Arthur continues to be an official observer on behalf of business and industry at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations each year since COP5 Bonn (1999) to COP27 Sharm El-Sheik, representing IPIECA, the international petroleum industry association focused on raising environmental and social performance and advancing the energy transition.

He holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MS in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology.