2026 Category: Speakers

Muhammad Aurangzeb leads Pakistan’s Ministry of Finance with a clear conviction that climate resilience and economic stability are inseparable. He co-launched Pakistan’s first ever National Climate Finance Strategy at COP29 and has championed the shift from project based climate spending to embedding resilience across national budgets. He is actively expanding green bonds, carbon markets, and debt for nature swaps as tools to attract the scale of investment Pakistan needs to protect its people and economy from deepening climate shocks.

Ziad Bashir brings the perspective of one of Pakistan’s leading textile companies to a climate conversation where the textile industry’s role is both central and contested. Pakistan’s textile sector is the backbone of its export economy, accounting for the vast majority of foreign exchange earnings, but it is also among the most resource-intensive, consuming large volumes of water and energy and contributing significantly to industrial emissions and effluent. The sector faces growing international scrutiny as major European and American buyers integrate sustainability requirements into their sourcing decisions. His participation signals a recognition within the textile industry that climate performance, environmental...

Alain Beauvillard directs strategy, policy, and innovation at the Green Climate Fund, the world’s largest dedicated climate finance institution. He previously served at France’s Treasury as Head of Multilateral Development and Climate Finance and worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs before bringing that experience to the GCF. In his current role, he is exploring innovative financing models including capital market borrowing to help the GCF meet its ambitious climate funding targets for developing nations.

Dawar Hameed Butt has spent years making Pakistan’s air quality crisis legible to the public, to policymakers, and to the media. As co-director of the Pakistan Air Quality Initiative and a public policy, health, and sustainability consultant, he has been at the forefront of research and advocacy on air pollution, smog, and the health consequences of environmental degradation in Pakistan’s cities. His analysis during the COVID-19 lockdown demonstrated that nitrogen dioxide emissions dropped by nearly fifty percent in Lahore, thirty-five percent in Karachi, and over fifty percent in Islamabad when industrial activity ceased, offering a baseline that made visible what...

A career civil servant with over 30 years of experience, she specializes in global climate finance and the mobilization of resources for high-risk, climate-vulnerable nations. Her strategic focus includes glacier resilience and transboundary cryosphere protection, advocating for regional cooperation to mitigate the impacts of rapid ice melt. Educated at the London School of Economics and Harvard, she brings a deep understanding of trade, policy, and development to the environmental sector. In Pakistan, she bridges the gap between scientific research and actionable federal policy. At international forums, she remains a key negotiator for equitable funding, highlighting Pakistan’s urgent need for sustainable...

Fahd Chinoy, as CEO of Pakistan Cables Limited, one of Pakistan’s most trusted wire and cable manufacturers, has made sustainability a cornerstone of corporate strategy. He led the company’s Urban Forest Initiative, planting dozens of indigenous species at the Pakistan Cables factory site as part of a long term commitment to building a greener ecosystem. A strong advocate for responsible business, Chinoy also serves on the ESG sub-committee of the Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry, where he actively shapes the sustainability agenda for Pakistan’s private sector.

Known widely as “Red,” Renato Redentor Constantino is a Manila-based policy strategist and essayist who spent over two decades as executive director of the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC) in the Philippines. He served as adviser to the Climate Vulnerable Forum — the coalition of 55 nations most threatened by climate change — and played a critical behind-the-scenes role in anchoring the 1.5°C warming limit in the Paris Agreement, a threshold that vulnerable nations famously insisted upon with the rallying cry “1.5 to stay alive.” A member of the Philippines’ Adaptation Fund board and a published author on...

Rita Dhital, a career diplomat and former Joint Secretary at Nepal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, took charge as Nepal’s Ambassador to Pakistan in late 2024. Since arriving in Islamabad she has pursued a brisk economic diplomacy agenda, reaching out to chambers of commerce from Karachi to Sialkot to make the case for expanded bilateral trade, restored air connectivity and private sector-led investment. On climate, she has drawn a sharp parallel between Nepal and Pakistan — both mountain nations bearing disproportionate costs of a crisis they did little to cause — and has called for unified advocacy on loss-and-damage finance and...

Sardar Muhammad Awais Dreshak represents Rajanpur in the Punjab Assembly and holds a Master’s degree in International Relations from Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad. Before entering politics, he spent over a decade with the United Nations working across governance, health and advocacy, experience that now drives his environmental work at home.As Convener of the Green and Disaster Risk Reduction Caucus, he has positioned the body as an active legislative force on climate action, pushing for stronger air quality controls, water conservation measures and the full implementation of Punjab’s Climate Change Policy Framework.

Fatima Faraz started speaking about climate change when most of her peers had not yet heard the term framed as something that concerned them personally. Based in Peshawar, she has used art, journalism, and street level activism to bring the climate conversation to audiences that formal policy rarely reaches. She has drawn attention to how heatwaves are quietly dismantling Pakistan’s agricultural base and threatening food security in ways that will hit children and the rural poor hardest. A member of the Prime Minister Youth Council and the Peshawar Clean Air Alliance, she has argued consistently that climate solutions imposed from...