Debra Roberts

Dr. Debra Roberts holds a PhD in urban biogeography and is currently head of the Sustainable and Resilient City Initiatives Unit in eThekwini Municipality (Durban, South Africa). She was a lead author of Chapter 8 (Urban Areas) and a contributing author to Chapter 12 (Africa) of Working Group II’s contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). She was elected as co-chair of Working Group II for the IPCC’s sixth assessment cycle in 2015. Dr. Roberts is an honorary professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in the School of Life Sciences and has been an advisor to the Global Commission on Adaptation, United Cities and Local Governments and the United Nations Secretary General’s 2019 Climate Summit