Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Archives

Xiaohua Zhang

Xiaohua is the Senior Director of ClimateWorks’ China Program where he manages the overall operation of the Program and our direct grantmaking to support climate action in China.

Prior to joining ClimateWorks Foundation, he was the senior policy advisor on climate action and cooperation in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, headed the International Cooperation Department of China’s National Centre for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation and served as program officer of UNFCCC secretariat. He started his career as the assistant researcher in Tsinghua University.

He has a Ph.D in nuclear engineering from Tsinghua University.

Josefina Cobián

Josefina is Program Manager for ClimateWorks’ Global Intelligence team. She co-manages a cross department initiative, the independent Global Stocktake which secretariat resides at ClimateWorks. As part of the Global Intelligence team, Josefina leads the development of new workstreams on climate impacts and the expansion of social, political, and economic work in Latin America and the Caribbean. She also manages exploratory work on AI and digital infrastructure and technologies.

Josefina has more than 7 years of environmental work experience in government, private, and non-profit sectors in Mexico, Japan, Honduras, Ecuador and the US. Prior to ClimateWorks, she worked on climate change and forest policy as a project manager for the federal Commission of Forestry in Mexico and as an independent consultant with Mexico and Honduras. Additionally, she was a forest policy fellow at the Environmental Defense Fund where she co-wrote a paper published in Forests journal. Josefina holds a Master of Environmental Management degree from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and an Environmental Engineering degree from ITESO University in Mexico. When not working on climate change issues, she enjoys traveling, exploring the bay area, baking and painting.

Surabi Menon

Dr. Surabi Menon is a leading climate scientist with over 25 years of experience in the field of climate change and vice president of Global Intelligence at ClimateWorks Foundation.

At ClimateWorks, Surabi plays a pivotal role advancing climate philanthropy by offering a global perspective on climate solutions, identifying investment trends, funding gaps, and action on high-impact opportunities. In 2023, Surabi served as the Executive Director of Partnerships for the UAE government for the Conference of Parties (COP28) in the UAE.

Surabi is currently a member of the advisory council of the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium, and Chair of the Science Advisory Council for the Carbon Technology Research Foundation, based in Oxford, UK. She was a charter member of the U.S. EPA’s Science Advisory Board (2012-2018) and has served on many other Boards and advisory councils.

Prior to joining ClimateWorks, Surabi was a climate scientist at Columbia University and NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and later a staff scientist and leader of the Heat Island Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California. She has published numerous peer-reviewed publications and co-authored the 2007 IPCC report that was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. She has a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science and an MBA in Sustainable Management.