Helen Watts
Senior Director of Global Partnerships, Student Energy
Helen Watts is Student Energy’s Senior Director of Global Partnerships, leading collaborations with public, private, and civil society organizations and advocating for meaningful youth inclusion in decision-making. Helen was a lead designer and implementer of Greenpreneurs, an entrepreneurship accelerator program for youth in the Global South co-led by Student Energy, Youth Climate Lab, and the Global Green Growth Institute. She continues to oversee and advise on the program as it enters its third year, to ensure the program continues to deliver on barriers youth face to entrepreneurship —including accessible education, local and global mentorship, and access to capital.
Helen has spoken at forums around the world to advocate for the value of youth and to raise global ambition on climate and energy action. Helen published works for the 2016 World Social Forum and is one of Canada’s 2018 Top 25 Environmentalists Under 25. Before Student Energy, she was at the global youth leadership organization AIESEC, and with the International Organization for Migration at the United Nations reporting on migration policy.
Day 0
October 10
Sessions by Helen Watts
Day 1
October 11
Sessions by Helen Watts
Day 2
October 12
Sessions by Helen Watts
11:00 am-12:00 pm
Breakout Room B
Cities Can Lead the Way on Clean Cooking
More than half the world’s population lives in cities. Urban areas are engines of economic growth and innovation — but also huge carbon emitters, contributors of pollution and consumers of resources. The way in which cities are designed and governed impacts the quality of life for billions of people. In growing cities around the world, three-quarters of the infrastructure that will exist by 2050 has yet to be built.
Empowering cities to lead clean cooking transitions that best suit the needs of their citizens is essential to improving health, environment, and climate. Municipal energy, climate and development plans should integrate cooking needs and create an enabling environment for the clean cooking sector to provide affordable and accessible solutions.
Cities are at a critical inflection point: Decisions made today will determine whether we continue on a path of fractured, unsafe, polluting growth, or succeed in creating a sustainable, resilient, more inclusive future. This session will discuss how national, state and city governments can collaborate to accelerate access to clean cooking and make cities around the world more resilient, inclusive, low-carbon places that are better for people and the planet.
Speakers
Nii Darko
Research Analyst II, World Resources Institute
Kweku Koranteng
Clean Energy & Climate Change Resilience Officer, ICLEI Africa
Abdul Karim Marah
Development and Planning Officer, Freetown City Council
Honorable Elizabeth Naa Kwatsoe Tawiah Sackey
Mayor of Accra
Mercy Rose
Program Lead, Energy 4 Impact
Helen Watts
Senior Director of Global Partnerships, Student Energy
Day 3
October 13
Sessions by Helen Watts
Day 4
October 14
Sessions by Helen Watts
Sessions by Helen Watts
Sessions by Helen Watts
Sessions by Helen Watts
11:00 am-12:00 pm
Breakout Room B
Cities Can Lead the Way on Clean Cooking
More than half the world’s population lives in cities. Urban areas are engines of economic growth and innovation — but also huge carbon emitters, contributors of pollution and consumers of resources. The way in which cities are designed and governed impacts the quality of life for billions of people. In growing cities around the world, three-quarters of the infrastructure that will exist by 2050 has yet to be built.
Empowering cities to lead clean cooking transitions that best suit the needs of their citizens is essential to improving health, environment, and climate. Municipal energy, climate and development plans should integrate cooking needs and create an enabling environment for the clean cooking sector to provide affordable and accessible solutions.
Cities are at a critical inflection point: Decisions made today will determine whether we continue on a path of fractured, unsafe, polluting growth, or succeed in creating a sustainable, resilient, more inclusive future. This session will discuss how national, state and city governments can collaborate to accelerate access to clean cooking and make cities around the world more resilient, inclusive, low-carbon places that are better for people and the planet.
Speakers
Nii Darko
Research Analyst II, World Resources Institute
Kweku Koranteng
Clean Energy & Climate Change Resilience Officer, ICLEI Africa
Abdul Karim Marah
Development and Planning Officer, Freetown City Council
Honorable Elizabeth Naa Kwatsoe Tawiah Sackey
Mayor of Accra
Mercy Rose
Program Lead, Energy 4 Impact
Helen Watts
Senior Director of Global Partnerships, Student Energy