Climate Misinformation Grant Program

Karen Florini is Vice President for Programs at Climate Central. Founded in 2008, the group provides authoritative, science-based information to help the public and policymakers make sound decisions about climate and energy. At Climate Central, her roles include developing and implementing strategies that reach and move large U.S. and global audiences as well as key decision-makers. In addition, she leads the integration of Climate Central’s program efforts, and oversees the creation and distribution of the group’s products to the public and thought leaders.

From April 2015 to January 2017, Karen served as Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change at the U.S. Department of State. In that capacity, she helped lead the Global Climate Change Initiative, a whole-of-government mechanism for integrating climate change considerations into foreign assistance. She also led the State Department’s engagement with businesses, state and local governments, and civil society in the climate negotiations context. In addition, she headed the State Department’s portfolio on short-lived climate pollutants, which included overseeing U.S. participation in the multilateral Climate and Clean Air Coalition, co-chairing the Coalition’s Oil/Gas Methane Partnership, and chairing the Arctic Council’s Expert Group on Black Carbon and Methane.

Previously, Karen worked at Environmental Defense Fund, where among other responsibilities she was Managing Director for International Climate and led the Environmental Health Program. Her combined 30-plus years of service on non-profit boards included 18 years as a Trustee of Oberlin College. She earned a bachelor’s degree with majors in biology and environmental policy at Oberlin, and a J.D. at Harvard Law School, where she was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Environmental Law Review.

Sander van der Linden, Ph.D., is Professor of Social Psychology in Society and Director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. He has won numerous awards for his research on human judgment, communication, and decision-making, especially in the context of climate change, including the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science (APS), the Sage Early Career Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), and the Frank Prize in Public Interest Research from the University of Florida. He co-designed the award-winning fake news game Bad News, which has been played by millions of people around the world and frequently advises governments and social media companies on how to fight misinformation. His research is regularly featured in outlets such as the New York Times, NPR, Rolling Stone, and the BBC and he has been described by WIRED magazine as one of “15 top thinkers” and by Fast Company as one “four heroes who are defending digital democracy online”. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Environmental Psychology and serves on the American Psychological Association (APA)’s Task Force on Climate Change. Before joining Cambridge, he held academic positions at Princeton, Yale, and the LSE.

Anthony Leiserowitz, Ph.D. is the founder and Director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and a Senior Research Scientist at the Yale School of the Environment. He is an expert on public climate change and environmental beliefs, attitudes, policy preferences, and behavior, and the psychological, cultural, and political factors that shape them. He conducts research at the global, national, and local scales, including many surveys of the American public. He conducted the first global study of public values, attitudes, and behaviors regarding sustainable development and has published more than 200 scientific articles, chapters, and reports. He has served as a contributing author, panel member, advisor or consultant to diverse organizations including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (AR6 Report), the National Academy of Sciences (America’s Climate Choices Report), the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, the Harvard Kennedy School, the United Nations Development Program, the Gallup World Poll, and the World Economic Forum, among others. He is a recipient of the Friend of the Planet Award from the National Center for Science Education, the Mitofsky Innovator Award from the American Association of Public Opinion Research, and the Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication from Climate One. He is also the host of Climate Connections, a radio program broadcast each day on more than 680 stations and frequencies nationwide.

Professor Chukwumerije Okereke is the Director of the Centre for Climate Change and Development at Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu-Alike and a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Reading and  Oxford, UK respectively.  He is a globally recognized leading scholar on global climate governance and international development with expertise in climate justice, national green growth transition in Africa, climate adaptation, business climate strategies, environmental policy, advising governments, corporates, and international institutions (e.g. United Nations, African Union).

Professor Okereke was previously the Co-Director of the Center for Climate and Justice and also the GPB1.05 million Reading University Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarship Programme.  He was also Director of the Center for Climate Change and Development at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford from 2009 to 2011.

Over the last 20 years, Professor Okereke has maintained an extensive high-impact engagement with national governments, businesses, and NGOs in Africa and led on several high-profile international projects on climate change policy, mainstreaming, and green economy transition in Africa including the UNDP funded Africa Adaptation Initiative (AAI) commissioned by the Committee of African Heads of State on Climate Change (CAHOSCC), the Analysis of the Adaptation Components in Africa’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDCs) commissioned by the African Development Bank, the Analysis of the Influence of Africa in global climate negotiations funded by the Economic Commission of Africa, the Governing Inclusive Green Growth in Africa project funded by the UK Global Challenges Research Fund,  and the Rwandan Green Growth and Climate Resilience Project, which was the first-ever national low-carbon plan in Africa.

Professor Okereke is the Coordinating Lead Author of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report. He has served as Lead Author on other major global scientific assessment projects including the IPCC Special Report on 1.5degree global warming and the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC; the United Nations Environment Programme’s Urbanization, Biodiversity, and Ecosystem Services Assessment.  Professor Okereke is the Green Growth expert in the team that is undertaking the technology needs assessment for the government of Cameroon on behalf of the United Nations Industrial Organization and the UNFCCC. Professor Okereke is a member of the Steering Committee of the Earths Systems Governance Project and a leading member of the Global Earth Commission’s Safe and Just Transformation Working Group. Professor Okereke is a member of the editorial board of several highly reputed journals in the field including, Global Environmental Politics, Business and Sustainable Development, Earth Systems Governance, and  International Studies Review.

Professor Okereke has published widely in the field, given a countless number of keynote speeches, and been interviewed by leading media houses in the world including BBC News, BBC World Services, France24, China Global Television Network, Channels TV, AriseTV, and several others.