Our strength lies in having worked together for many years on a range of climate policy issues in various roles. With our diverse specialisations, we complement and reinforce each other to form a high-performance team.
József has worked on climate change for 17 years and has held management positions since 1997. He was responsible for overseeing all national, EU and international climate policy implementation in Hungary until 2012. He led the work of the Hungarian EU Presidency on climate policy in 2011. He was the deputy head of the Cyprus EU Presidency team on climate policy in 2012 and was Advisor to the Lithuanian and then the Hellenic EU Presidency teams on climate policy in 2013 and in 2014 respectively. He was regional policy coordinator of CEE Bankwatch Network between 1997-2003. From 2003 he was head of unit, then head of the Department of Climate Change at the Hungarian Ministry of National Development, where he led a team of 20 people and was responsible for overseeing all national, EU and international climate policy implementation in Hungary. He led the work of the Hungarian EU presidency on climate policy in 2011, he was the deputy head of the Cyprus EU Presidency team on climate policy in 2012 and was Advisor for the Lithuanian EU Presidency on climate policy in 2013. He has participated in international climate negotiations since 2000 and was vice-chair of the SBI of the UNFCCC between February 2006 and December 2007. He holds an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University, and an MSc in Environmental Sciences and Policy from Central European University. He lives in a passive house and is Director of the Hungarian Passive House Association. He is fluent in English and has an intermediate level of Russian and German.
István is a climate policy professional with over 15 years of experience in climate policy development and management on a global, European and national level. Between 2005 and 2011 he worked in the European Commission's DG Climate Action in Brussels where he was in charge of regulating and overseeing the EU ETS registry system. In 2011, he was delegated by the EU to the climate policy team of Hungary’s EU presidency. Since 2011 he is based in Budapest and is working at Klimapolitika where he has advised government clients on ETS and climate policy-related issues in Kazakhstan, China, Ukraine, Moldova and Hungary. He also regularly collaborates on climate policy-related research projects with various international think tanks, such as Ecologic, Climate Strategies or IDDRI. In addition to his role in Klimapolitika, he also served as the founding director of the non-profit Hungarian Energy Efficiency Institute between 2011 and 2015. Since 2015 he is the Co-Chair of Energiaklub Climate Policy Research Institute on a pro-bono basis. With degrees in urban planning, law and political science, he has published several academic papers and articles about emissions trading, and climate policy in general. He regularly speaks about climate policy at conferences and in the media. He is fluent in English, French, German and Italian.
Ágnes has worked as an environmental economist for think tanks, national government and the European Commission. She has been with Klimapolitika since 2012 where she has worked on various projects in the Western Balkans and Ukraine. Her main focus currently is on low emissions development, but she has also been involved in setting up the EU ETS in Hungary, enhancing the climate performance of EU funding, and international climate negotiations. She has an MSc in Economics with a specialisation in environmental economics and public policy, and is currently pursuing a PhD in environmental policy at Central European University. She is contributing author to two chapters of the IPCC 5th Assessment Report Working Group III.
Édua has worked on climate change issues for more than 7 years. Her experience ranges from research on adaptation in urban areas, water management and agriculture, through the analysis of implementation of mitigation policies (specifically on F-gases, transport) and participation in the international and EU emissions trading as well as the planning and operating of a Green Investment Scheme, to working on UNFCCC issues in the EU Presidency teams of Hungary, Cyprus, Lithuania and Greece (EU coordination for SBSTA negotiations for 4 semesters; co-chairing EU Expert Groups on Means of Implementation, Flexible mechanisms and Adaptation under different settings; assistance to EU outreach activities). Prior to working on climate change, Édua was a management consultant in the financial sector. She graduated with degrees in International Management (Brussels), Finance and Marketing (Budapest) and is currently a student in Environmental Engineering. She is fluent in English and French and is proficient in Italian.
Fanni SÁFIÁN Fanni.Safian@klimapolitika.com
Fanni graduated from Eötvös Loránd Science University as a Geographer (Enrvironmental Researcher), She is currently finalising her PhD disseration on modelling sustainable energy pathways for Hungary. She studied Sustainable Energy Planning and Management at Aalborg University, Denmark with a focus on hourly detailed complex energy modelling for countries and regions. She participated in several research projects about energy visions focusing on renewable energy integration and sustainable local solutions (Vision Hungary 2040, Alternative Energy Scenarios for Hungary, SEAPs and SECAPs, Small Local Communities Programme etc.) and published her results in leading peer-reviewed journals and book chapters. She has been volunteering for several professional NGOs since 2007 and also actively participated numerous international trainings and professional programs about energy transitions, including Empowering European Citizens, Energy Summer Schools, and Climate KIC Pioneers in Practice. Fanni has previously worked for Energiaklub Climate Policy Institute and Applied Communications where she participated in Hungarian and international research projects on energy modelling, energy projections and GHG inventories. During her work, she emphasises the social side of energy management because she believes that the psychology of consumption and community-based solutions are key issues for the future. She speaks English and German fluently.
Gabriella DÓCI Gabriella.Doci@klimapolitika.com .Gabriella is an organizational sociologist and an environmental policy advisor with expertise in renewable energy policy. She holds a PhD in Environmental Studies from VU University Amsterdam. Her research has studied the formation and organization of community-based, grassroots initiatives in the context of sustainability transitions; in the course of her PhD she published in high quality review journals. She counselled governmental officials at the Dutch Ministry of Interior in developing new renewable support policies. As a researcher she has been involved in a number of Horizon 2020 research projects on smart cities, sustainable urban development and climate adaptation. Prior to her researcher career, she worked for different NGOs such as Greenpeace and Amnesty International on social and environmental issues. As a press officer of Greenpeace she developed special media campaigns to raise awareness about climate change and the importance of the renewable energy transition.
Dóra CSERNUS Dora.Csernus@klimapolitika.com
Dóra has worked on environmental sustainability for more than 10 years. She holds an MSc in Economics with specialisation in EU integration from the University of Szeged and an MSc in Geopolitics from the Institut Français de Géopolitique at Paris 8 University. As an expert in environmental issues, she has worked for several public administration bodies. Her experience ranges from climate change policy development through water management, waste management, nature conservation and biodiversity, to the teaching of sustainable development, mainly environmental economics, for university students. She was member of the Hungarian team that negotiated and tailored the EU’s climate-energy package for the 2010-2020 period, and participated in several UNFCCC and EU meetings on climate change. She endeavoured to develop a holistic approach to questions related to water resource protection, and was responsible for the interpretation to decision makers of the EU Waste Framework Directive and Hungary’s National Strategy for the Conservation of Biodiversity. She is bilingual in Hungarian and French and fluent in English.
Gergely GUBACSI - Klimapolitika external EUETS senior expert and managing director at Interzona Climate Change Advisory gergo@interzona.hu,
Gergely has been active in the emissions trading business for the last 15 years providing consultancy services to installations, industry alliances and other private entities. He graduated as an economist (MSc) and started his career at Deloitte Ltd where he adopted Japanese efficiency improvement philosophies to refine the shop-floor operations of manufacturing companies. Later having been involved in heavy financial modeling of mobile operators, it wasn’t a big change to apply his modeling and project management capabilities and step into the climate change business in 2003. Gergely’s own company, Interzona Climate Change Advisory and Management Consulting Ltd. was founded in 2005 to offer complex project management services including emission and allocation modelling, monitoring system design, custom application development to assist CO2 emissions reporting, GHG permitting and quota application to EUETS and Kyoto installations. Gergely continues to provide installation level services through his own company, and at the same time contributes to Klimapolitika's policy advisory team with his in-depth EUETS installation level knowledge, thorough monitoring and reporting expertise and general consulting and project management skills.
Xuenan MAO - Intern Umy.Mao@klimapolitika.com Xuenan, also known as Umy, is a Chinese national who has been living and studying in Europe for more than eight years. She grew up in a trilingual environment with English, Chinese and Hungarian spoken around her, and has also been studying French as her fourth language since high school. She is a third year student of the Environmental Science for Sustainable Energy and Technology bachelor study programme in Avans University of Applied Sciences in Breda, the Netherlands. She is currently doing her internship in Klimapolitika on the South East Europe Energy Transition Dialogue project. Before joining Klimapolitika, Umy has taken part in several virtual environmental science projects under her study programme on fields including water management, (sustainable) energy feasibility, environmental dynamic modelling, as well as climate change. She has also been taught the fundamental knowledge about investment decisions and the ethics behind environmental science. As an intern, she hopes to gain a greater understanding in the world of environmental consultancy.