Opening session

(Moderator)
Grégoire Lory is a journalist for Euronews, specialising in European affairs and covering the politics of the EU institutions for 20 years in Brussels. As soon as he joined Euronews in 2015, he started following climate policy with COP 21 in Paris. Since then he has regularly travelled to the annual UN event and analysed the evolution of EU climate policies and their consequences on citizens.
He has also extensively covered space policy. The European Space Conference is a key moment in this media coverage. Throughout the years he analyses projects launched by the European Space Agency and their political, climate and industrial implications.
In addition to his work as a journalist, he has taught European politics at IHECS, a journalism school in Brussels.

Federal President of the Republic of Austria Dr. Alexander Van der Bellen
Alexander Van der Bellen (born in 1944) took office as the Federal President of the Republic of Austria on 26 January 2017.
From 1994 to 2012, Alexander Van der Bellen was a member of the Austrian National Assembly, and from 1999 to 2008 Chairman of the Greens’ Parliamentary Group. From 1997 to 2008, he served as Federal Spokesperson for the Austrian Greens.
Apart from being a politician, Van der Bellen also pursued an academic career. From 1980 to 2009, he was appointed as Full Professor of Economics at the University of Vienna, and from 1990 to 1994, Deputy Dean and then Dean of the University of Vienna School of Social and Economic Sciences.

Josef Aschbacher became the ESA Director General on 1 March 2021. In 2023, his mandate as ESA DG was approved for a further period of four years as from 1 March 2025.
Born in Austria, Josef studied at the University of Innsbruck, graduating with a Master degree and a PhD in natural sciences. He has had an accomplished international career in space, combining more than 35 years’ work experience at ESA, the European Commission, the Austrian Space Agency, the Asian Institute of Technology, and the University of Innsbruck.
As CEO of ESA, Josef is responsible for the definition, implementation and development of Europe’s space infrastructure and activities. He is responsible for an annual budget of almost €8 billion and a workforce of 5500 distributed across several establishments, principally in Europe.

Andrius Kubilius is a Member of the European Commission responsible for Defence and Space (since December 2024). From 1990 to 1992, he served as a Secretary-in-Charge of Lithuania’s pro-independence Sąjūdis movement and was the Chairman of the Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats from 2003 to 2015. A. Kubilius was a member of the Lithuanian Parliament from 1992 to 2019 and served twice as Prime Minister, from 1999 to 2000 and from 2008 to 2012. Andrius Kubilius was a Member of the European Parliament from 2019 until December 2024, during which he chaired the Delegation to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly (until July 2024).

Simonetta Cheli is the Director of Earth Observation Programmes and Head of ESA-ESRIN in Frascati, Rome. With over 30 years at ESA, including roles at Headquarters in Paris and ESA-ESRIN, she leads the agency’s Earth Observation strategy, overseeing satellite development, mission operations, ground segment data, and science applications.
As a member of ESA’s Executive Board, Simonetta manages an annual budget of €2.5 billion (34% of ESA’s overall funds) and directs 1000+ staff and contractors across five sites. She plays a key role in forging global partnerships, including major programmes like Copernicus, collaborating closely with space agencies, industry, scientific communities, and international partners.
In her role as ESA’s representative in Italy, she leads ESA-ESRIN and represents the agency at international forums and media events worldwide.
Born in Siena, Italy, Simonetta studied Law and Economics at Yale University, earned a Political Science degree with a focus on International Satellite Telecommunication Law in Florence, and holds an advanced diploma from the Centre d’Etudes Diplomatiques et Stratégiques in Paris. Fluent in five languages, she is an acclaimed expert, recipient of prestigious awards, active in numerous international committees, and teaches master’s courses on space at several universities.

Aarti HOLLA-MAINI
Director, United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs
Aarti Holla-Maini is the Director of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), having taken up post on September 18 following her appointment by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.
Ms. Holla-Maini brings over 25 years of experience in the space and satellite sector, working predominantly with international organizations and regulators. Prior to the United Nations, she held the post of Secretary-General of the Global Satellite Operators Association.
Ms. Holla-Maini is a recognized leader with a strong track record in forging public-private and cross-sector partnerships; high-level advocacy at the international level; strategic communication and managing diverse stakeholders. Under her leadership, Ms. Holla-Maini expanded the association from being a regional organization to a global one representing commercial satellite operators around the world.
She was one of the chief architects of the Crisis Connectivity Charter established in 2015 for emergency telecommunications via satellite with the UN World Food Programme’s Emergency Telecommunications Cluster and has, on multiple occasions, secured recognition and policy support for space technologies to play their rightful role in connecting the unconnected, in Europe, Africa and beyond.
The appointment of Ms. Holla-Maini comes at a time when activities in space are being increasingly driven by the private sector. Her deep experience in high-level advocacy with international organizations and regulators, along with her understanding of the opportunities and challenges facing the space sector, will serve Member States well as they seek to access and leverage the benefits of space to accelerate sustainable development.
Ms. Holla-Maini’s experience has included service as a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Space; member of the Advisory Group of the Space Sustainability Rating managed by eSpace at EPFL Space Center; member of the Advisory Board of the Satellite Industry Association of India; Senior Space Policy Advisor to Forum Europe and an Expert Advisor on Space Traffic Management for European Union studies 2021-2023. Since October 2024 Ms. Holla-Maini is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics.
Ms. Holla-Maini holds a bachelor’s degree in law with German law from Kings College London and a master’s degree in business administration from HEC in France. She is fluent in French, German and Punjabi alongside her native English and has moderate knowledge of Dutch.

Florence Rabier
Leader in weather and climate, Dr Rabier has been Director General of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) since 2016, leading ECMWF through a period of major change and expansion. ECMWF, an intergovernmental organisation supported by 35 states, works collaboratively with Member States, Space Agencies and the World Meteorological Organisation, providing cutting edge monitoring and forecasts of the Earth system from days to months ahead to its users. It is responsible for operating world leading services from the European Union’s Copernicus programme, as well as being a key partner in the Destination Earth initiative delivering Digital Twins of the Earth. ECMWF is also leading, together with Member States, Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning developments in meteorology, adding Data Driven simulations to physics-based forecasts in its portfolio of activities.
Dr Rabier is an internationally recognised scientist, whose leadership has contributed to delivering major scientific advances and operational improvements at both ECMWF and Météo-France. She is especially well known for her key role in implementing an innovative method making optimal use of satellite observations in weather forecasting and climate monitoring.
She is an honorary member of the American Meteorological Society and a member of the French Academy of Technology.

Diana Ürge-Vorsatz is a Professor at the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy at Central European University (CEU) and Vice Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since July 2023. She previously served as Vice-Chair of IPCC Working Group III (Mitigation) during the Sixth Assessment cycle and as a Coordinating Lead Author for the Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports (AR4 and AR5).
She holds a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and has worked at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Diana has led and contributed to major international projects for organisations such as the European Commission, UNEP, the World Bank, and OECD.
She serves as an Associate Editor of Global Environmental Change Advances and is an ICLEI Global Executive Committee Member, Urban Research and Innovation Portfolio. She is also the Vice President of the Hungarian Panel on Climate Change and a member of the Scientific Advisory and Review Board (SARB) of IIASA.
A recognised leader in climate science on the mitigation side, she has delivered over 300 keynote speeches globally and provided expert advice on the science-policy interface, including for the EU’s Joint Research Centre and the European Research Council. She has served on numerous governing and advisory boards and frequently appears in high-profile media outlets, including BBC World News, The New York Times, and EuroNews.

Phil Evans became EUMETSAT’s fifth Director-General on 1 January 2021. Phil brings to the role the experience gained from his long career in Board positions at the UK Met Office and a background in remote sensing and satellite instrumentation. More recently he led the provision of services and policy advice to governments and was the Met Office Chief Operating Officer. He also brings a strong commitment to collaboration with partners around the globe.
Phil’s guiding principle is that working with partners, from Member States’ meteorological services to global satellite agency alliances, will be essential as extreme weather events will exact an increasingly heaving social and economic toll on communities. Monitoring those events in order to mitigate their impact and measure the effect of climate regulations will be crucial over the next 50 to 100 years.
After leaving the Met Office and before joining EUMETSAT, Phil was Director of Physics Programmes at the Institute of Physics, in 2020. There, he was a member of the Executive Board and Board of Trustees.

Lene Rachel Andersen
Full member of the Club of Rome, President of the Copenhagen based think tank Nordic Bildung, and co-founder of the Global Bildung Network.
I am an economist, author, futurist, philosopher and bildung activist. After studying business economy for three years, I worked as a substitute teacher before I studied theology. During my studies, I wrote entertainment for Danish television until I decided to quit theology, become a fulltime writer and focus on technological development, big history and the future of humanity.
Since 2005, I have written 20 books and received two Danish democracy awards: Ebbe Kløvedal-Reich Democracy Baton (2007) and Døssing Prisen, the Danish librarians’ democracy prize (2012).
Among my books are The Nordic Secret (2017; new edition January 2024), Metamodernity (2019), relaunched 2023 as Polymodernity, Bildung (2020), What is Bildung? (2021), and Libertism (2022).

Nicolas Gruber (Ph.D. 1997, University of Bern, Switzerland)
Nicolas Gruber (1968) is full Professor of Environmental Physics at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. His primary research interests center on the ocean and its interaction with the climate system, with a special focus on the global cycling of carbon and other biogeochemically relevant elements, such as nitrogen and oxygen. In his work, he combines the analysis of observations with physical and biogeochemical/ecological models. He has written more than 250 peer-reviewed publication, with 30 of those having been published in the Nature and Science family of journals. For the last five years, he has been recognized as a highly cited author. He authored together with Jorge Sarmiento the textbook “Ocean Biogeochemical Dynamics” that has become a standard text in the field. In recognition of his outstanding contribution to marine sciences, Dr. Gruber received the Rosenstiel Award from the University of Miami in 2004. In 2012 he was elected fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). AGU awarded him in 2024 the Revelle Medal for his work on the role of the ocean as a sink for human-made carbon dioxide. He currently serves as head of ETHZ’ Department for Environmental Systems Science. He is member of several international research boards and serves as a review editor for Science Magazine.