former IPCC Former IPCC Vice-Chair, Professor, Climate and Environmental Sciences, Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium

President, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Japan

Kazuhiko Takeuchi graduated from the Department of Geography, the University of Tokyo in 1974. He obtained M.Agr. and Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Agriculture, the University of Tokyo. He has served as a Lecturer in the Faculty of Science, Tokyo Metropolitan University; an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Agriculture, a Professor in the Asian Natural Environmental Science Center, and a Professor in the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Science at the University of Tokyo; and as Director and Professor, Integrated Research System for Sustainability Science (IR3S) at the University of Tokyo. He also served as a Vice-Rector and Senior Vice-Rector at United Nations University from 2008 to 2016 and as an Assistant Secretary-General at the United Nations from 2013 to 2016. Since 2016, he has served as a Senior Visiting Professor at the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS). He has been Director and a Project Professor of IR3S at the University of Tokyo since 2017. He took up the position of Chair of the Board of Directors, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) in July 2017.

Prof. Takeuchi specializes in landscape ecology, landscape planning, and sustainability science. He engages in research and outreach activities on creating eco-friendly environments for a harmonious coexistence of people and nature, especially focusing on Asia and Africa. Recently, he has been working toward establishing a global foundation for developing the field of sustainability science aiming to build a sustainable society. He is deeply involved in the SATOYAMA initiative, aiming at the restoration and revitalization of socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes around the world, and Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) initiated by FAO.

Special Envoy for Science in Global Policy, International Science Council

Senior maritime Policy Advisor, Executive Office of the Secretary-General, International Maritime Organisation

Professor, Biological Oceanography Globe Institute, Leader Sustainability Science Centre, University of Copenhagen

KR is a professor and leader of the Sustainability Science Centre (www.sustainability.ku.dk) at the University of Copenhagen. Her area of expertise is the importance of biological processes in the ocean for the uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere and how ocean biology, including diversity, contributes to ocean function in the Earth System. She is also co-developer of the Planetary Boundaries framework that aspires to define a “safe operating space for humanity” in terms of anthropogenic feedbacks in the Earth System and a firm believer that the “leave no one behind” objective of Agenda 2030 must be seen in the context of the bio-physical limits of Earth’s resources. KR was Chairman of the Danish Commission on Climate Change Policy that reported in 2010 and presented a roadmap for how Denmark can become independent of fossil fuels by 2050. She is at present a member of the Danish Climate Council and was a member of the 15 person Independent Group of Scientists appointed by Ban Ki Moon to draft the 2019 UN Global Sustainable Development Report.

Deputy Director, FIA Foundation