Kaveh Guilanpour

Vice President for International Strategies, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions

Kaveh Guilanpour is the Vice President for International Strategies at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, overseeing the international aspects of the work of C2ES including in relation to the United Nations negotiations process.

Mr. Guilanpour has worked in the environmental sector in policy and legal roles for more than two decades, with almost 15 years of experience on international climate change issues related to the UNFCCC. During that time he has held various positions, including: legal advisor on the United Kingdom and European Union’s international climate negotiating teams; the United Kingdom’s head of UNFCCC negotiations; co-lead negotiator on climate change for the European Union; co-lead negotiator on climate change for the Alliance of Small Island States; head of the Secretariat of the High Ambition Coalition; and Principal Advisor on Climate Change to the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

More recently, Mr. Guilanpour served as a senior member of the UN Secretary General’s Climate Action Team.

Mr. Guilanpour has a First Class Honors Degree in biochemistry and a Masters in environmental technology, both from Imperial College, London. He is also a qualified lawyer, and practiced international environmental law at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

Posts by Kaveh Guilanpour

Publication
Rising to the Climate Finance Challenge

Delivering the levels of finance necessary to implement climate solutions at the scale needed—almost U.S. $6 trillion for developing countries by the end of the decade according to the agreed outcome from the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) in …

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Publication
What are Investable NDCs? (Discussion Paper)

Parties are expected to communicate new nationally determined contributions (NDCs) by February 10, 2025, with an end date of 2035. Although many first and second-round NDCs were designed to attract investment, they did not deliver the results that many hoped …

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Publication
Re-invigorating the UN Climate Regime in the Wider Landscape of Climate Action

Parties will complete the first global stocktake (GST) under the Paris Agreement in 2023, presenting an important opportunity to reflect more widely on the UN climate regime (the regime). The world is a very different place from when the Paris …

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Publication
A Solutions-oriented Approach to the Paris Agreement’s Global Stocktake

To ensure success at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s 28th Conference of Parties (COP28), Parties must agree to specific, operational, and transformational signals in the first global stocktake (GST). Drawing upon more than two years of analytical …

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Publication
Options for a Politically-Salient Headline for the Global Goal on Adaptation

The outcome of the Paris Agreement established the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), not as a quantitative goal but as a shared aspiration. The GGA will be one of the goals against which the global stocktake (GST) will assess collective …

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Paper
Options for a Politically-Salient Headline for the Global Goal on Adaptation (Technical Paper)

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Paper
Reinvigorating the UN Climate Regime in the wider landscape of climate action

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Publication
What does the COP26 Outcome on Article 6 Mean for Non-Party Stakeholders?

Article 6 of the Paris Agreement established a framework for countries to cooperate in achieving their climate commitments (nationally determined contributions, NDCs), using market mechanisms to enable greater ambition than they could achieve independently. The Paris Agreement implementing guidance finalized …

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Publication
COP27: The Mitigation Work Programme & The Ministerial Roundtable

To be most effective, the Mitigation Work Programme (MWP) could usefully aim to:  generate discussions that are facilitative, constructive, innovative, and catalytic  be inclusive and ensure a diversity of participation, including by policymakers and implementers  generate clear signals in support …

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Blog Post
COP27: Pivoting from negotiation to implementation
Blog Post
The focus on loss and damage will only increase
Blog Post
Latest UN climate talks must make progress on Glasgow mandates to ‘keep 1.5 alive’
Publication
Loss and Damage: Issues and Options for COP27

To respond to the urgency of enhancing understanding, action, and support necessary to meet the extreme challenges of climate change, Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) need to accelerate action and support for loss and …

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Publication
Designing a Meaningful Global Stocktake

The first global stocktake (GST) under the Paris Agreement takes place from 2021–23 and serves as the first official checkpoint to assess Parties’ collective progress on climate action. This brief investigates how the GST, within the constraints of the United …

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Blog Post
From confrontation to collaboration – the need for humility
Publication
The Global Goal on Adaptation: Issues for COP26

Adaptation continues to be a high priority, and the delivery on adaptation-related topics and mandates will be integral to achieving a successful outcome at COP26. Adaptation under the Paris Agreement has several important features that together create a system that …

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Publication
Article 6: Issues for COP26

A majority of Parties with new or enhanced NDCs anticipate using voluntary cooperation under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement to achieve their NDCs. After Parties were unable to come to an agreement on carbon market rules in Madrid, international …

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Publication
Loss & Damage: Issues for COP26

Parties have expressed interest in building out more effective implementation of the action and support for loss and damage (L&D). The interest in accelerating action and support for L&D has expressed itself in relation to three issues:  The development of …

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Blog Post
How should we measure success at COP26?
Blog Post
COP26: Climate Finance Issues
Publication
Climate Finance: Issues for COP26

Climate finance refers to the local, national, or transnational financing that supports mitigation and adaptation actions to address climate change. It can be drawn from public, private, and alternative sources of financing. In accordance with the principles of the UN …

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Blog Post
Transparency of Action: Issues for COP 26
Blog Post
The UNFCCC has previously adapted to succeed and must do so again