After completing his Ph.D. in 1967, he joined the faculty of the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada where he stayed until 1975. Here he taught courses in applied mathematics, statistics, air pollution and meteorology. Apart from completing some work in plasma physics while on leave at the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority in Culham, U.K. during 1969, his main research interests during this period were in air pollution and aqueous geochemistry. The former included important work of the dynamics and dispersion of industrial plumes (particularly moist plumes), while the latter produced highly cited papers on the dissolution kinetics of calcite, chemical modelling and carbon isotope geochemistry.

In 1975, he moved to the U.K. to take up a "soft money" research job in climatology, in the then fledgling Climatic Research Unit in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, U.K. In 1978, on the retirement of CRU’s founder and first Director, Professor H.H. Lamb, he became Director of the Unit. Since then, the Unit has become firmly established as one of the world's leading centres in climatology. In 1993, he resigned as Director of the Climatic Research Unit to take up the position of Director of the Office for Interdisciplinary Earth Studies at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, a post held into 1994. He was appointed as an NCAR/UCAR Senior Scientist in 1994. In 2008 he moved back to Australia where he was awarded an Adjunct Professorship at the University of Adelaide. He retired from NCAR in 2009 and was re-appointed as a Senior Research Fellow (honorary). He currently spends time both at NCAR and at the University of Adelaide.

Wigley has published in diverse aspects of the broad field of climatology; from data analysis, to climate impacts on agriculture and water resources, to climate, sea level and carbon cycle modelling, to paleoclimatology. He has concentrated recently on facets of the greenhouse problem, and contributed as a lead author in each of the seven recent major reviews of this problem (US DOE, WMO/UNEP/ICSU-SCOPE, and the 1990, 1992, 1994, 1995, 2001 and 2007 IPCC Reviews). He is one of the most highly cited scientists in the discipline

Dr Juan M Pulhin is full Professor and former Dean of the College of Forestry and Natural Resources (CFNR), University of the Philippines Los Baños. He also holds the title of Scientist III, under the University of the Philippines Scientific Productivity System in recognition of his scholarly outputs and international scientific standing. He has been a Visiting Professor at The University of Tokyo for two times in 2007 and 2010. He has more than 30 years of experience in natural resources education, research and development at the national and international level and has authored/co-authored more than 100 technical publications dealing on various aspects of natural resources management and climate change. He has also co-authored/co-edited eight books on forest rehabilitation, impacts of forest tenure reform, climate change, and disaster risk reduction published by reputable publishers. He was a Coordinating Lead Author of the Human Security Chapter (Chapter 12) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II Contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report released last 2014 and a Lead Author of the adaptation chapter of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. Dr Pulhin earned his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Forestry degrees at the University of the Philippines Los Baños and Ph.D. degree in Geographical Sciences from the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies of The Australian National University.

Dr Ye’s research background includes an expertise in social-economic impacts of climate changes and disaster risk governance. As the executive director of the Integrated Risk Governance Project, sponsored by Future Earth/ICSU and UNISDR, he has engaged extensively with the scientific research community, weather and climate services, government policy makers, business sectors, educators and general public around the world on the disaster risk reduction and green development, supervising two current doctoral projects in co-benefit of reducing disaster risks and building resilient society. He has been awarded over $3 million USD in competitive research funding and has published over 30 peer-reviewed papers in the area of climate change and disaster risk governance. He is the coordinator of Global University Consortium for Integrated Risk Governance Project, an international education network.

Dr Li DAN is now a full professor of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IAP, CAS). He works in the Key Laboratory of Regional Climate-Environment for Temperate East Asia (RCE-TEA). In March 2008, He was appointed as the expert of short term consultant of World Bank for the climate adaptation. During 2008 to 2011, he was the program manager in Atmospheric Division of Earth Science Department, National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). Since 2012, he is the assistant director of RCE-TEA. He is a member of Chinese Meteorological Society (CMS) and American Geophysical Union (AGU). Dr Dan’s research interests include interaction between biosphere and atmosphere, land surface model development, climate simulation and modeling, the impact of dynamical vegetation processes and carbon cycles on climate, and climate downscaling.

Greg Jenks has pioneered science-led and innovative dune restoration work. Many projects are successfully established that now accomplish affordable littoral restoration while also mitigating the effects of SLR.

• A recognised leader of the new 21st Century Paradigm for Sustainable Coastal Management.
• Inspected, quantified and prepared international restoration plans for degraded coastal areas in association with CLIMsystems Ltd.
• Delivered a programme plan for viable and economical coastal restoration projects to mitigate existing and future concerns regarding anthropogenic-induced beach erosion.
• Invited to present sustainable, leading-edge and community-focussed management options for mitigating coastal erosion concerns in Pacific Island nations, and to assist with the preparation of a National Adaptation Plan of Action (NAPA) for Vanuatu.
• Inspect, quantify issues and prepare ecological restoration plans for mitigation of coastal erosion in Vanuatu, in association with CLIMsystems Ltd.
• Prepared and submitted a leading-edge and community-focussed beach management and restoration plan for beaches on the Sunshine Coast, Australia.
• Has recently contributed to the "Urban Coastal Zones" chapter of the UCCRN Second Assessment Report on Climate Change and Cities (ARC3-2), to be published by Cambridge University Press in December 2015 and launched at COP21 in Paris.”