A new key biodiversity platform for cross sectoral collaboration
For its inaugural launch, World Biodiversity Summit will help define what world leaders and the private sector in biodiversity and climate action need to do in the medium and long term to achieve sustainable development and hinder further biodiversity loss, focusing on partnerships and investment mechanisms as levers of progress. World Biodiversity Summit is a platform for responding to accelerating biodiversity loss, by using the Paris Agreement as a framework to learn from, promoting relevant solutions, innovations, and leadership networks, strengthening nature restoration and conservation. Nature-based solutions will be highlighted, from specificecosystems to global possibilities.
SPEAKERS
SPEAKERS
SPEAKERS
26 September 2024
SECOND, New York, USA
Climate Week NYC
27 October 2024
Cali, Colombia,
alongside UNCBD COP16
Kaveh Zahedi
Director, Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Mr Kaveh Zahedi is the Director of the Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment.
Prior to joining FAO, from 2016 to 2023 Mr Zahedi served as the Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) in Bangkok, Thailand, overseeing ESCAP’s programmes on environment, climate change, natural disasters, finance, energy, trade, transport, social development, and statistics, all in support of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
From 1995 to 2016, Mr Zahedi served at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in positions of increasing responsibility, including as Regional Director and Representative for Asia and the Pacific (Bangkok, Thailand); Deputy Director of the Economy Division and Climate Change Coordinator (Paris, France); Acting Director/Deputy Director of the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (Cambridge, United Kingdom); Regional Coordinator (Mexico City, Mexico); and Environmental Affairs Officer (Nairobi, Kenya). Mr Zahedi started his career in 1993 as Economic Consultant at the non-governmental organization Cooperation for Development (London, United Kingdom), where he was responsible for managing agricultural credit and micro finance projects in Latin America and the Middle East.
Mr Zahedi is a national of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United Kingdom, holds a Master of Arts in International Relations from The Fletcher School at Tufts University in the United States, and a Bachelor of Science in Economics (1st class honours) from University College London in the United Kingdom.
