IEA Speaker series: The role of sustainable energy in ending poverty and advancing climate justice

Ms. Mary Robinson is President of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice. She served as President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997 and as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002. She is a member of the Elders and the Club of Madrid and the recipient of numerous honours and awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama of the United States. She is also a member of the Lead Group of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement. From March 2013 to August 2014, she served as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Great Lakes region of Africa and in August 2014 was appointed a Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General on Climate Change.

A former President of the International Commission of Jurists and former chair of the Council of Women World Leaders, from 2002 to 2010 Mary Robinson was President and founder of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative and served as Honorary President of Oxfam International from 2002 to 2012. She serves as Patron of the Board of the Institute of Human Rights and Business in addition to being a board member of several organisations including the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the European Climate Foundation. The Chancellor of the University of Dublin since 1998, her memoir, Everybody Matters, was published in September 2012.