COP26 Interview: Prof Trevor Letcher, Prof Carolina Arlota & Prof Hirdan Costa

In the run up to COP26, the United Nations Climate Change conference, RELX’s Global Head of Corporate Responsibility, Dr Márcia Balisciano, talks to Prof Trevor Letcher, Prof Carolina Arlota & Prof Hirdan Costa about the energy transition required to meet the Paris Agreement.

Trevor M. Letcher is Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He is a past Director of the International Association of Chemical Thermodynamics and his research involves the thermodynamics of liquid mixtures and energy from landfill. He was awarded the South African Chemical Institute’s Gold medal in 1999 and in 2000 he was awarded the South African Gold medal by the South African Association for the Advancement of Science. He has published over 250 papers in peer review journals and has edited, co-edited and written eleven books in his research and related fields. 

Trevor has authored many books with Elsevier – his most recent releases include The Impacts of Climate Change published in May 2021 and Comprehensive Renewable Energy, Second Edition, due to publish in 2022.

Carolina Arlota is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Oklahoma, College of Law, where she has taught courses on several international topics, such as International Energy Law, International Commercial and Investment Arbitration, International Business Transactions, Comparative Law, and European Union Law. Dr. Arlota holds an LL.M. and a J.S.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In Illinois, she was awarded the Lemann Graduate Fellowship. Dr. Arlota was also a recipient of prestigious fellowships granted by the TINKER Foundation and by the Fondation pour le Droit Continental (Université Paris II, Pantheon Assas – located in Paris, France).

Hirdan Katarina de Medeiros Costa is a lawyer, consultant and professor. She has been working in the energy sector since 2004. Hirdan has a bachelor’s in law, her undergrad background is Petroleum Law from the University of Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil). Moreover, she has a Master Degree on Energy Issues from the University of Sao Paulo and her dissertation focused on the Regulation of Natural Gas. She holds a Master of Laws from the University of Oklahoma, where she was a distinguished Visiting Researcher. Currently, Hirdan is a Collaborating Professor at the Energy Program of the University of Sao Paulo’s Institute of Energy and Environment, where she is the Deputy Director of the Energy Policy and Economics Program.

Hirdan and Carolina are the Editors of the upcoming book, Carbon Capture and Storage in International Energy Policy and Law due to publish at the end of October.