Navigating Climate Uncertainty: Charting New Paths and Collaborations
About the event:
In a week filled with panels, pitches, and packed agendas, this session is designed as a pause.
As geopolitical shifts reshape climate action across the Global South, this convening brings together a curated group of leaders to reflect on what is changing on the ground - and what new forms of leadership and collaboration are emerging in response.
The room will include philanthropists, social entrepreneurs, climate practitioners, and fellows from networks such as Skoll, Ashoka, and Atlantic, with perspectives spanning Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Format
30-minute panel conversation
60-minute facilitated listening circles
30-minute mixer
The listening circles will create small, trust-based spaces for participants to engage in honest, experience-led dialogue. Through guided reflection and collective synthesis, the session will surface key patterns across three themes:
Disruption: How geopolitical shifts are affecting climate action
Resilience: Emerging strategies and innovations from the Global South
Partnership: What meaningful collaboration should look like going forward
This is intentionally a low-pressure, non-transactional space.
No pitches. No business cards. Just conversation grounded in lived experience.
Who Should Attend
This session is designed for a curated group of:
Philanthropists and impact investors
Social entrepreneurs and changemakers
Climate practitioners and advocates
Leaders working at the intersection of climate, community, and systems change
Please note: This is a curated, invitation-based session with limited capacity.
The Speakers
Dr. Adriana Abdenur is co-president of the Global Fund for a New Economy (GFNE), which aims to foster innovative economic thinking and initiatives around the world. Between 2023 and 2005, she was Special Advisor in international affairs in the office of President Lula da Silva (Brazil). A Brazilian policymaker and scholar, she co-founded the think tank Plataforma CIPÓ. In 2025, she was appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa to the G20 Extraordinary Committee on Global Inequality. Dr. Abdenur earned a Ph.D. from Princeton University and has published widely on global governance, climate change and sustainable development. She is a Senior Fellow at TIDE, Oxford University, and at the Centre for Sustainable Structural Transformation at SOAS.
Diego Casaes is a program director in CECG (Climate Emergency Collaboration Group), a philanthropic collaboration working to enhance multilateral cooperation for climate and development. He is a 2025 Skoll Foundation Fellow and a TEDx speaker, and a board member for several organizations in Brazil. He has over a decade of experience in advocacy, campaigns, and international environmental negotiations, particularly supporting environmental, grassroots, and Indigenous peoples. Before joining CECG, he was a senior director at the global campaigning organization Avaaz.
Genora Givens is a program director at Waverley Street Foundation. Before joining Waverley, Genora worked as a research analyst and program manager at The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, supporting the Climate and Land Use strategy teams on monitoring, evaluation and learning, and leading efforts to incorporate principles of diversity, equity, inclusion and justice into grantmaking. While at the Packard Foundation, Genora designed and implemented a grassroots support program that provides grants and capacity-strengthening resources to hyperlocal organizations working to combat extractive industries. Genora was a 2018 Environmental Grantmakers’ Association Fellow at Clean Water Action, where she researched the impact of oil and gas production on U.S. water quality and quantity. Genora holds a Bachelor of Arts from Willamette University in Salem, and a Master’s of Environmental Management from Yale School of Environment.
Siyanda Siko is an Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity and the head of sustainability programs at Sibanye-Stillwater, South Africa. His mission is to facilitate a just transition to a post-mining economy that is socially inclusive, environmentally sustainable and economically diversified in the southern Africa region. Siyanda holds a Master of Science in Sustainable Development from SOAS University of London.
Anshul Tewari is the Founder of Youth Ki Awaaz, India's largest civic engagement platform working at the intersection of citizen voice, data and public policy. Over 18 years, he has built it into a participatory civic infrastructure that enables young people to shape public discourse through storytelling and polling, generating youth-led insights in partnership with governments, multilaterals and foundations, and engaging over 200,000 young people each month. A significant focus of his work is climate resilience — bridging how climate change is experienced on the ground with how decisions are made — including co-creating India's first youth-centered climate action framework with the National Institute of Urban Affairs. He explores how participatory systems and AI can enable more responsive, citizen-informed public institutions. He is a Skoll World Fellow, Ashoka Fellow and UN ITU Young Innovator, and serves on Snap Inc.'s Global Safety Advisory Board and the board of trustees of the Internet Freedom Foundation.
The Event Organizers
The Atlantic Institute provides the space and resources for Atlantic Fellows and program staff to collaborate across disciplines, geographies and communities. Based at Rhodes House in Oxford, it also connects members of the Atlantic community with values-aligned strategic partners — fostering an ecosystem that works collectively toward greater equity.
Youth Ki Awaaz is India’s largest civic engagement platform, working at the intersection of citizen voice, data, and public policy. Over 18 years, it has built a participatory infrastructure that transforms lived experiences into actionable insights for institutions and decision-makers.
CECG (Climate Emergency Collaboration Group) is a strategic regranter, ecosystem coordinator, and philanthropic facilitator, focused on fostering increased and enhanced international cooperation in response to the climate emergency.