Mr Russell Higgins

Russell Higgins AO is an IAP member as well as the Chair of the Board of the Global CCS Institute.  Russell brings extensive corporate and government experience in the energy sector in Australia and internationally. He is a non-executive director of APA Group, Telstra Corporation Limited and SunRice Limited and was Secretary of the Department of Industry, Science and Resources from 1997 to 2002. Russell also led the APEC work in the energy sphere for many years.

Mr Claude Mandil

Mr. Claude Mandil is the former Executive Director of the International Energy Agency. Born in Lyon, France in 1942, Mr Mandil is a graduate of France’s Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole des Mines.

From 1967 until 1974, he worked as a state engineer for the Lorraine and Brittany regions. He then served as a senior officer in the Delegation for Area Planning (DATAR) from 1974 until 1977 and from 1978 until 1981, as Indepartmental and Regional Director of the National Agency for the Encouragement of Research (ANVAR) for the Pays-de-la-Loire region, in Nantes. 

In 1981, Mr. Mandil became Technical Advisor in the French Prime Minister’s cabinet, where he was responsible for industry, energy and research until 1982. He was then named Chief Executive Officer of the Institute for Industrial Development (IDI), an investment bank and held the post from 1984 to 1988. He oversaw the privatisation of the bank in 1987, including the transfer of 40 percent of the capital to the bank’s employees. He subsequently became Director General of the Bureau of Mines and Geology (BGRM) and held the post from 1988 to 1990.

From 1990 to 1998 Mr. Mandil served as Director General for Energy and Raw Materials at the Ministry of Industry, Post and Telecommunications. In this post, he was instrumental in the adhesion of France to the IEA in 1991. He became France’s first representative on the IEA’s Governing Board, and served as Chairman thereof from 1997 to 1998.

From 1991 to 1998, he also represented France at the Nuclear Safety Working Group of the G7 and served as President of this group in 1996. He was named Managing Director of Gaz de France in October 1998, and then Chairman and CEO of the Institut Français du Pétrole in April 2000. 

Professor Dr Zeng Rongshu

Professor Dr Zeng studied at the Department of Geology, Nanjing University from 1962 to 1968, with additional study at the Department of Earth Sciences, Manchester University, United Kingdom where he completed his Ph.D. Degree from 1980-1984.

From 1987-1999 Professor Dr Zeng was the Deputy Director of Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and has 19 years experience in environmental geology and geochemistry. 

Has been involved in four projects supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) China, the European Union and the Australian Government for CO₂-Enhanced Oil Recovery and Carbon Capture and Storage. They are: (1) "CO₂-EOR and geological storage underground in China" (Chinese National Basic Research Program, 2006-2011); (2) "Cooperation Action within CCS China – EU" (COACH, 2006-2009) (3) "European Capacity for Geological Storage of Carbon Dioxide" (EU GeoCapacity, 200-2008); and (4) "China Australia Geological Storage of Carbon Dioxide" (CAGS,2009-2011). 

He is responsible for the study of geological characterization of reservoirs, caprock and saline aquifers in Jilin oilfield, Songliao Basin, Huabei oilfield, Jizhong Depression and Shengli oilfield in Jiyang Depression in China to investigate potential storage capacity of CO₂ underground. 

Dr Leena Srivastava

Dr Leena Srivastava is an Executive Director at the Energy & Resources Institute (TERI), New Delhi and Senior Vice President of TERI-NA (Tata Energy and Resources Institute, North America), Washington, DC, USA. From November 1992 to January 1994, she was the Vice-President, TERI-NA.

She has been the Dean, Faculty of Policy and Planning, TERI School of Advanced Studies, since June 2000 and she teaches doctoral courses in Energy Policy and Planning and Infrastructure Economics. She has a number of publications to her credit and is on the editorial boards of several international journals dealing issues related to energy and the environment.

Dr Srivastava is a member of the Expert Committee to formulate Energy Policy set up by the Planning Commission, Government of India. She also serves on the Research Advisory Committee of IGES (the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Japan), the International Advisory Board of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, Germany and is a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the IHDP-IT Programme (International Human Dimensions Programme - Industrial Transformation).  She was a Coordinating Lead Author for Working Group III of the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and is currently the Anchor for Sustainable Development and Climate Change for the Fourth Assessment Report.

Dr Srivastava holds a Master's degree in Economics from the University of Hyderabad and a Ph.D. in Energy Economics from the Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. She has also attended the Energy Management Training Program at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York, USA.

Lord Nicholas Stern

Lord Nicholas Stern is a renowned academic and former World Bank Chief Economist, as Special Adviser to the Chairman on Economic Development and Climate Change. Lord Stern has had a distinguished academic career at the universities of Oxford, Warwick and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where he is currently IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government. From 2003-2007, Lord Stern was Head of the Government Economic Service and Adviser to the UK Government on the Economics of Climate Change and Development, reporting to the Prime Minister and to the Chancellor.

During this time, he was appointed to conduct a review of the economics of climate change, which led to the publication of the influential and widely publicised Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change.  From 2004-2005, he directed the writing of the Report of the Commission for Africa. He is also a part-time advisor to HSBC on economic development and climate change issues.