Speakers

Dr Keith Allott is head of WWF-UK's climate change programme, a team which works on issues including the Climate Change Bill, UK energy policy, emissions trading, climate change adaptation, international climate change negotiations and aviation. Before joining WWF, Keith spent most of his career working as Deputy Editor at ENDS, the leading publisher of information and analysis on UK and EU environmental policy. He also worked for the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and contributed to its 2000 report on Energy & Environment - the source of the Government's current target to reduce the UK's CO2 emissions by 60% by 2050.

Professor Jan Bebbington was appointed as the Sustainable Development Commission's Vice-Chair, Scotland in July 2007. She was born in New Zealand but emigrated to Scotland in 1991. During her time in Scotland she has worked in the Universities of Dundee and Aberdeen before taking up a chair in Accounting and Sustainable Development in the School of Management at the University of St. Andrews.

Her research interests focus around the dual themes of corporate reporting on sustainable development and full cost accounting and modelling. In the area of full cost accounting Professor Bebbington has worked with many organisations who are seeking to model their sustainable development impacts. She is also the Chair of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants Social and Environmental Committee and Associate Director of the Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research and was previously external advisor to the Scottish Cabinet Sub-Committee on Sustainable Scotland.

Chair

James has worked in environment his whole life – from research into clouds, building an automatic weather station on Cairngorm, studying pollution in the sea, managing hydrological stations and assessing flood risk and installing flood warning schemes. He then became Head of Science with SEPA, and also Head of Environmental Strategy. Maybe best known for speaking out widely and for many years on the threats of climate change, he left SEPA in 2006 to create Entrading an eco-store in the centre of Glasgow selling environmental household goods.

Colin Galbraith is in Scottish Natural Heritage. He is responsible for the delivery of policy advice on the natural heritage and for the management of the Research Programme for the organisation. He has a scientific background relating to species ecology and management.

He has been (2001-2006) Chair of the Scientific Council on Migratory Species (a UN Convention with 102 Parties or member countries), dealing with the ecology and conservation of migratory species at the global level. Currently he is Vice-Chair of the Council. He was a member of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, an assessment of global biodiversity funded by the UN and World Bank.

Ronnie is married with two children. After attending universities in Edinburgh, Canada and Oxford, he started work with the Greater London Council in the early ‘80s during the Ken Livingstone era.

Ronnie qualified as an accountant just as the GLC was being abolished and worked for a couple of London boroughs before coming back to Scotland to join Lothian Region until they were abolished in 1996. Following this, he worked for the City of Edinburgh and North Lanarkshire Councils in senior finance positions, followed by a period as Controller of Audit at Audit Scotland. In June 2006, Ronnie took up the post of Chief Executive, Fife Council.

Chris is a career UK government policy advisor with over 15 year’s experience of developing and implementing EU and UK environmental policy. Currently on secondment from DEFRA, the UK Government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Chris directs The Climate Group’s work on cities and states and regions, and is managing the process of establishing their presence in India.

For the five years prior to joining The Climate Group in June 2006, Chris headed up the UK Government’s national climate change policy work. He led the cross-Government work on reviewing the UK’s National Climate Change Programme which culminated in the 2006 UK Programme. He also led the negotiations for the UK on the development of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and subsequently managed the UK Government’s implementation of the Scheme. Chris spent much of the previous ten years in the UK’s Environment Department working on a wide range of environmental protection policy issues. This has included working on UK national and European policy on drinking water quality, waste management and local air quality. He has wide experience of the EU environmental legislative process and has led the UK negotiations in the EU on a number of EU environment directives.

Philip was unable to attend the conference.

Phillip joined the LGA this January, as a Senior Policy Consultant, and leads on the Climate Change Commission, welfare reform and culture. He authored the recent LGA publications "Taking Part Counts” and “Welfare Reform – the case for devolution".

Previously Phillip worked at HM Treasury where he led the policy development on youth volunteering that culminated in the publication of the Russell Commission report "A national framework for youth action and engagement” and the Chancellor’s Budget 2005 announcement of up to £150 million to implement it."

Before that he was Associate Director of The Giving Campaign, a national campaign to encourage charitable giving in the UK, on secondment from HM Treasury.

Phillip joined the Treasury in 1990, straight from university. He also held other policy posts covering the new information legislation, privacy and data-sharing; how to combat financial crime and money laundering where he was a member of the G7 Financial Crime Experts Group; and project managed the Budget and Spending Review process between 1996 and 1998.

Phillip read Economics at the LSE and has an MA in Information Studies from Loughborough University. He is married with four children, a keen windsurfer, mountain biker and a qualified football coach and referee.

Ray Morgan has had a career in the public sector for over 30 years. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy and is Chief Executive of Woking Borough Council.

Ray joined Woking Borough Council as Director of Finance in 1989 and since that time has championed many key initiatives and been instrumental in the development of many of the authority’s key strategies namely: Asset Management; Equalities and Diversity; Implementation of Electronic Government; Partnership Development; and Waste Management and the Council’s Climate Change Strategy. Ray is also Director of the Thameswey Group of Companies producing both energy and housing projects. Ray was appointed Chief Executive in April 2006.

John Mason was born in 1956 and brought up and educated in Chichester in West Sussex. He graduated from Oxford University in 1978 with a degree in geography and from University College London in 1980 with a postgraduate degree in town planning. He has been a Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development since 1997. He lives in Linlithgow with his wife and 3 children. John is a non-executive Board member of Scottish Swimming.

He initially worked for Kent County Council as a town planner before moving to the former Department of the Environment in London in 1985. He joined the former Scottish Office in 1990 and has held a series of policy posts since then dealing with housing, industry and tourism, culture and sport. He was Principal Private Secretary to the First Minister in 2001/2. He was seconded to Registers of Scotland in 1994/96 as Deputy Chief Executive to establish the Agency as a Trading Fund. He took up his current post in January 2006 as Head of Environment Group now titled Director of Climate Change and Water Industry and Environmental Quality Directorates due to restructuring. His responsibilities cover climate change, the water industry, environmental protection, flood prevention, waste and pollution reduction and international environmental commitments.

Born in 1964, John Swinney MSP is the Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth. John joined the Scottish National Party in 1979 and went on to graduate from Edinburgh University with an MA (Hons) in Politics. He has worked for the Scottish Coal Project, Development Options and Scottish Amicable.

Prior to his election as Westminster MP for North Tayside in 1997, he held a number of posts in the SNP at local and national level. In 1999, he became the MSP for Tayside North, while remaining as the constituency’s MP until standing down from Westminster at the 2001 General Election. Having served as the SNP’s Deputy Leader since 1998, he became Leader in 2000. After relinquishing his post in 2004, John became Convener of the Scottish Parliament’s European and External Relations Committee.

He was re-elected as an MSP at the 2007 Scottish Parliament election before his appointment as Cabinet Secretary. John has two children and is married to Elizabeth Quigley. He lives near Blairgowrie in his constituency and his hobbies include cycling and hill walking.

Helen is managing the team of consultants from MWH and the Scottish Institute of Sustainable Technology (SISTech) who were commissioned by SNIFFER (the Scotland and Northern Ireland Forum for Environmental Research) to evaluate a range of climate change tools that could help local authorities deliver the commitments in Scotland’s Climate Change Declaration. The project, which was funded by the Scottish Government, has produced a database and guidance to help Scottish local authorities choose ‘The Right Tools for the Right Jobs’. The database and guidance will be made available on-line following the SSN Conference 2007.

Helen is a senior consultant at CAG, one of the UK’s leading consultancies specialising in policy advice, research and evaluation in relation to sustainable development, regeneration and community engagement. CAG Consultants advised on the development of Scotland’s Climate Change Action Pack, and are the authors of the Nottingham Declaration Climate Change Action Pack and Getting on Target: Sustainable Energy Benchmarking and Toolkit for Local Authorities. Helen, and CAG Consultants have, and are currently working with a range of local authorities to develop climate change strategies. Before joining CAG in January 2007, Helen worked for the Environment Agency.

Dave is a Natural Environment Research Council Fellow in the School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh. He studies greenhouse gas emissions in environments ranging from the Southern Ocean to evil-smelling drainage ditches.

He is author of Climate Change Begins at Home (Macmillan) and the forthcoming children’s book Your Planet Needs You (also Macmillan). He is lead editor of Greenhouse Gas Sinks (CABI Publishing), creator of the climate change website Greenhouse Gas Online (www.ghgonline.org), and author of numerous academic and popular articles about climate change.

Dave is a regular media commentator on climate change issues, and a frequent guest speaker on climate change issues in the UK and overseas. He lives in a house well above sea level with his wife, daughters, and Florence the Labrador.

Formerly a civil servant, Alison is currently Depute Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrat Group on Argyll and Bute Council and was Leader of the Council itself from 1999 to 2001.

She is a SEPA Agency Board Member, and director of the Scottish Low Pay Unit. She is a former member of the Highlands and Islands Film Commission. Other local interests include being Chair of Auchendrain Museum Trust and a GRAB Board Member (Group of Recycling in Argyll and Bute).