The presentation of the 2nd Report of the SDSN Senior Working Group on the European Green Deal, entitled “Financing the Joint Implementation of Agenda 2030 and the European Green Deal” took place on Tuesday, May 3rd, during a public debate moderated by the head of the writing team, Professor Phoebe Koundouri, with the participation of, among others, the main authors of the report, Greek government ministers and MEPs. More than 500 people watched the event, which was broadcast live on YouTube.

The event kicked off with high level remarks from keynote speakers including Prof. Yannis Ioannidis from the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens and Athena Research & Innovation Center, Prof. Christos Zerefos from the Academy of Athens and Prof. Jeffrey Sachs from Columbia University, President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

On the occasion of the presentation of the report, Prof. Phoebe Koundouri announced the SDSN Global Climate Hub (GCH), which will be co-chaired by Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, Prof. Phoebe Koundouri, Prof. Yannis Ioannidis, Prof. Christos Zerefos and Prof. Andreas Papandreou and will be launched next July during the “Workshop on Ancient Wisdom for Modern Challenges” in Athens. The Hub will bring together scholars and researchers from around the world to work collaboratively to address the most pressing challenges related to climate change and to identify sustainable pathways through the instruments of technology, finance, and policy.

Prof. Phoebe Koundouri presented the key messages and conclusions from each chapter of the report while the co-authors, Dr. Carlo Papa,  Prof. Marzio Galeotti, Mr. Ketan Patel, Prof. Theodoros Zachariadis and Prof. Stefan Brunnhuber, presented the chapters of the report that they contributed.

The audience then heard from a series of high-level national ministerial, MEPs and policy making representatives, including Christos Staikouras, Minister of Finance; Christos Dimas, Minister of Research and Innovation; Christos Stylianidis, Minister for the Climate Crisis and Civil Protection and Teresa Ribera, Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister for the Ecological Transition. Maria Spyraki, Member of the European Parliament, Greece, Udo Bullmann, Member of the European Parliament, Germany, Petros Kokkalis, Member of the European Parliament, Greece, Kristy Bartolo, Advisor to the Minister, Ministry for Environment, Energy and Enterprise, Malta, Markus H.-P. Müller, Managing Director, Global Head of Chief Investment Office Private Bank at Deutsche Bank, Massamba Thioye, Project Executive UNFCCC Global Innovation Hub at UN Climate Change, and Roland Schatz, Founder and CEO of United Nations Global Sustainability Index Institute UNGSII Foundation.

Read our Newsletter here 

Watch the event here.