California State Senator Bob Wieckowski chairs the Environmental Quality Committee and Budget Subcommittee 2 on Resources, Environmental Protection, Energy and Transportation.  He was appointed by the Senate President Pro Tem to serve on the Energy and Environment Committee of the Council of State Governments West and in 2017 became the first Californian to chair the committee. He is a state leader in advocating for climate adaptation programs and has participated on many international, state and regional panels examining green infrastructure investments.His 10th Senate District includes several clean energy companies that are helping California improve both its economy and its environment.

Since 2007 Thomas Becker holds the position Vice President Governmental Affairs at the BMW Group in Munich. In his position he supervises the worldwide representation of BMW Group’s political interests, oversees the company’s approach to integrate political topics into the product and business communication of the BMW Group, and steers the sustainability communication of the company.

Thomas Becker started his career as a Consultant in the department of environmental policy at the Association of the German Industry (BDI) in Berlin. He later held several leadership positions at the Association of the Automobile Industry (VDA) in Frankfurt. Before his current role at the BMW Group, he held the position of Deputy Managing Director of the VDA with responsibility for the co-management of the association. Thomas Becker also served as a reserve officer with the rank of Captain from 1988 until 2003 for the German military.

Thomas Becker received his PhD degree (Dr. rer. pol.) with Professor Dr. Ekkehard Kappler at the Reinhard-Mohn foundation chair for management, economics, and social evolution at the University of Witten / Herdecke with magna cum laude. Thomas Becker also holds a diploma in economics from the University of Cologne

George Heyman was elected as the MLA for Vancouver-Fairview in 2013, and re-elected in 2017. He is the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy.

George was the executive director of Sierra Club BC, one of the province’s oldest environmental advocacy and education organizations. He also served three terms as president of the BC Government and Service Employees’ Union (BCGEU). In both organizations, George was a respected negotiator and a strong fiscal manager. Prior to these positions he lived in Terrace for many years, and worked throughout BC’s northwest and coastal communities.

George has been a faculty member of Simon Fraser University’s Dialogue and Negotiation program, teaching courses in multi- party negotiations and collaborative decision-making. He has guest lectured at a number of universities in B.C. and abroad, and served on advisory committees for post-graduate and undergraduate degree programs at three B.C. universities.

George is a passionate advocate for issues facing his constituents, including education, health care, the arts, child care, workers’ rights, transit, affordable housing, environmental responsibility and climate action. He also advocates for a more sustainable, modern and diverse economy.

George enjoys running, kayaking, live music and theatre.

Graduated from the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and received a scholarship in quantum optics from the National Institute of Standards and Technologies in Washington (DC), where he worked under the lead of William D. Phillips, Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics. During his studies, he also specialised in economics, with particular emphasis on market organisation under the lead of Professor Jean Tirole, Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics in 2014. He also studied international economics at the University of Louvain La Neuve and was awarded a Master’s degree at the Warsaw School of Economics. He defended his PhD dissertation at the University of Warsaw. In the past, he worked as a professor, teaching change management, economics, market organisation and industrial strategy at the University of Warsaw, Collegium Civitas, Oxford Programme on Modern Poland. He co-authored the concept of effective change management in an enterprise, described in the book Zarządzanie zmianą. Od strategii do działania, he also wrote Od restrukturyzacji do modernizacji. Opóźniona transformacja polskiego sektora elektroenergetycznego w latach 1990-2009.

He began his professional career in the Office of the Committee of European Integration, in the team of Minister Jan Kułakowski, responsible for conducting accession negotiations with the European Union, where he led an analytical team and was directly responsible for the area of energy and transport. Later on, he carried out the modernisation processes in numerous Polish companies, where he supported adaptation to the challenges of the European and global market. He promoted European cooperation in the field of industrial changes and adaptation of European industry to the challenges of globalisation within the framework of the European University of Labour and the Dublin Foundation.

He created the governmental programme for the development of electro-mobility in Poland,

described for the first time as a concept in New Electricity and New Cars, a book written in

2013-2015, together with Prof. Leszek Jesień. He also serves as Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Electro-mobility Programme.

Since 1 January 2016, he has been working as the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Energy, where he has been directly responsible for technological development and innovation in the energy sector, implementation of climate and energy policy in the fuel and gas sector, international relations with countries and international organisations. His duties also included supervising the participation of the state in the largest Polish energy companies in the oil and gas sector, such as Orlen, Lotos and PGNiG. He was the initiator of the “Electro-mobility Development Plan” and then piloted the creation of a law on electro-mobility and alternative fuels, thanks to which these forms of transport will be able to develop dynamically.

On the 27th of April 2018, he was appointed as the Plenipotentiary for the Presidency of the COP 24 Summit.