Laurence Tubiana (born 1951) is a French economist, academic and diplomat.
She served as France's Climate Change Ambassador and Special Representative for the 2015
COP21 Climate Change Conference in Paris, and is recognised as a key architect of the resulting
Paris Agreement
The Paris Agreement (french: Accord de Paris), often referred to as the Paris Accords or the Paris Climate Accords, is an international treaty on climate change. Adopted in 2015, the agreement covers climate change mitigation, Climate change a ...
.
Tubiana founded and has headed the Paris-based Institute of Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), is a professor at
Sciences Po Paris
, motto_lang = fr
, mottoeng = Roots of the Future
, type = Public research university''Grande école''
, established =
, founder = Émile Boutmy
, accreditation ...
, and has previously served as senior adviser on the environment to the former French Prime Minister
Lionel Jospin
Lionel Robert Jospin (; born 12 July 1937) is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 1997 to 2002.
Jospin was First Secretary of the Socialist Party from 1995 to 1997 and the party's candidate for President of France in ...
. She has been responsible for conducting international environmental negotiations for the French government and has also been a member of the Economic Analysis Council (Conseil d’analyse économique) attached to the French Prime Minister's office.
Since 2013 she has been Chair of the Board of Directors of the
French Development Agency (AFD). Since 2017, she has been CEO of the
European Climate Foundation
The European Climate Foundation (ECF) is an independent philanthropic initiative working to help tackle the climate crisis by fostering the development of a net zero emissions society at the national, European and global level. Its aim is to pro ...
.
Early life and education
Tubiana was born in Oran, Algeria, in 1951. Her father, an entrepreneur with interests in tobacco and the cinema, came from an established Jewish Algerian family. Her mother and grandmother were Greek Catholic immigrants and early importers of modern Swedish furniture in Algeria. Thanks to her parents, both French-speaking, left-wing intellectuals, she developed an interest in politics and open discussion from an early age.
Tubiana was 11 when Algeria gained independence in 1962. Together with her family, she moved to France.
In May 1968, like many teenagers of the times, she joined the
Revolutionary Communist League.
Tubiana graduated from
Sciences Po
, motto_lang = fr
, mottoeng = Roots of the Future
, type = Public university, Public research university''Grande école''
, established =
, founder = Émile Boutmy
, a ...
in 1973 and obtained a doctorate in economics from
Université Paris I (Sorbonne) in 1976. She then set about taking the entrance examination for
INRA, the French National Agricultural Research Institute.
Career
1980s-1990s
Tubiana worked as an assistant to the then economics professor
Lionel Jospin
Lionel Robert Jospin (; born 12 July 1937) is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 1997 to 2002.
Jospin was First Secretary of the Socialist Party from 1995 to 1997 and the party's candidate for President of France in ...
, at the University Technology Institute in
Sceaux.
In the 1980s, she founded and headed Solagral, an NGO involved in issues of north–south cooperation, food and agriculture.
In 1997, when Jospin became prime minister, she was his environmental advisor.
She helped him with the negotiations for the
Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that (part ...
in 1997. She was also a member of the French Economic Analysis Council (Conseil d’analyse économique) attached to the French Prime Minister's office. In 2000; she was appointed Inspector General of Agriculture in 2000.
Tubiana was also Research Director at INRA (1995-2002) and an associate professor at the École nationale supérieure agronomique in Montpellier (1992-1997).
2000s
In 2001, Tubiana founded the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (Institut du développement durable et des relations internationales – IDDRI) and in 2003 was appointed Professor and Director of the Sustainable Development Chair at Sciences Po.
She was also a visiting professor at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
's
School of International and Public Affairs
The School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University (SIPA) is the international affairs and public policy school of Columbia University, a private Ivy League university located in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, New York City. It ...
(2004-2014).
Tubiana assisted the French authorities with preparations for the 2009
COP15
The 2022 United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was planned to be held in April 2022 in Kunming, China, but was postponed, for a fourth time, to the third quarter of 2022 a ...
climate change conference in Copenhagen.
In May 2009, she created and then led Directorate for Global Public Goods at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
2010s
Ahead of the
2012 French presidential election
Presidential elections in France, Presidential elections were held in France on 22 April 2012 (or 21 April in some overseas departments and territories), with a second round Two-round system, run-off held on 6 May (or 5 May for those same territ ...
, Tubiana co-signed an appeal of several economists in support of candidate
François Hollande
François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (; born 12 August 1954) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2012 to 2017. He previously was First Secretary of the Socialist Party (PS) from 1997 to 2008, Mayor of Tulle from ...
.
In 2012, Tubiana became a member of France's high-level steering committee on the Energy Transition Debate whose work led to the adoption the
French Energy Transition Law in 2015.
From 2012 to 2014, she co-chaired the Leadership Council of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network and co-chaired the network's working group on Deep Decarbonization Pathways.
She has also been a member of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development since 2002.
In 2014, Tubiana was appointed France's Climate Change Ambassador and Special Representative for the 2015
COP21 Climate Change Conference in Paris. She is viewed as a key architect of the
Paris Agreement
The Paris Agreement (french: Accord de Paris), often referred to as the Paris Accords or the Paris Climate Accords, is an international treaty on climate change. Adopted in 2015, the agreement covers climate change mitigation, Climate change a ...
on climate change, adopted by the parties to the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established an international environmental treaty to combat "dangerous human interference with the climate system", in part by stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in th ...
(UNFCCC) on 12 December 2015.
ee section on the Paris Agreement below.In 2016, Tubiana was appointed High-Level Champion for pre-2020 climate action to sustain the momentum generated by the Paris Agreement, alongside Hakima El Haité.
Current functions
Tubiana has been CEO of the European Climate Foundation since 2017. She was appointed a member of
France's High Council on Climate Change in 2018. She is Chair of Expertise France's Board and President of the French Environment & Energy Management Agency's (ADEME) Scientific Council. She has also been Chair of the Board of Directors of the French Development Agency (AFD) since 2013.
COP21 and the Paris Agreement
On 15 May 2014, in view of her extensive international expertise on climate issues,
Laurent Fabius
Laurent Fabius (; born 20 August 1946) is a French politician serving as President of the Constitutional Council since 8 March 2016. A member of the Socialist Party, he previously served as Prime Minister of France from 17 July 1984 to 20 Marc ...
, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, invited Tubiana to be his representative for the COP21 Paris climate conference. As she explained in a ''Women of 2015'' interview with the Financial Times, Tubiana was then in New York, working as a visiting professor at Columbia University.
Despite the enormous amount of work the position of special ambassador would entail, she immediately accepted the offer. Her appointment as Special Ambassador was confirmed at the meeting of the
Council of Ministers
A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or natio ...
on 3 June 2014. Over the next 18 months, she worked days from 7 am to almost midnight and took around 45 trips to meet ministers and business groups around the world. Her strategy, which proved successful, was based on encouraging countries to come up with their own plans for adopting domestic policies to provide for action on climate change.
Before the conference, Tubiana explained her views on global warming: "It's a fascinatingly complex topic... Conditions today are unsustainable and unbalanced, favouring attitudes and levels of consumption which are harmful for us all. The driving force for me is the very idea of justice".
[
It was Tubiana who suggested inviting the heads of state to the opening of the conference, avoiding the problems faced at COP15 in Copenhagen when they came in at the end. With responsibilities for meals and lighting, she also relaxed the dress code, creating a convivial atmosphere for the delegates.] She herself negotiated the corridors of the conference site in sneakers rather than high heels after a horse-riding accident. She had also spent two days in hospital with appendicitis just a week before the conference started.[ Tubiana was given much of the credit for managing the negotiations, which resulted in the agreement of 195 countries to a final text which went far beyond earlier expectations.][
A few days after the conference, Tubiana emphasised its most important outcomes, several of which went significantly beyond the initial goals. They included limiting warming "to well below 2°C and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C" rather than to 2 °C before the meeting. Just a few countries covering only 15% of greenhouse gas emissions were initially required to come up with concrete policies.] After the meeting, all but the poorest countries were included. Financial institutions were also increasingly required to take account of climate change in their investments. As a result of the meeting, new energy technologies would enjoy unexpected levels of development, with ever more joint ventures between national administrations and private companies.
Recognition
* 2008 – Officer of the Legion of Honour
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon, ...
.
Selected publications
*Henry, C., & Tubiana, L. (2017).
Earth at Risk: Natural Capital and the Quest for Sustainability
'. Columbia University Press. .
*
*
References
External links
Laurence Tubiana's page at European Climate Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tubiana, Laurence
1951 births
Living people
French economists
French women scientists
French environmentalists
Ambassadors of France
People from Oran
Officiers of the Légion d'honneur
French women ambassadors