About Penny
Penny Urquhart is a climate-resilient development specialist, strategic advisor, policy analyst, and a writer. With over 30 years of international consulting experience, she was a Lead Author on the 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report and a Member of the Scientific Committee for the ‘Our Common Future under Climate Change’ conference leading to the groundbreaking 2015 Paris climate negotiations. The author of several books on environmental sustainability, her writing increasingly integrates her longstanding interest in the arts and spirituality. Penny is currently working on a creative non-fiction book that interweaves conversations with climate scientists, artists, activists, and politicians into the larger matrix of the transforming world.
Penny has worked for over 30 years on sustainable development at multiple levels from the grassroots to governments and UN agencies. Her work spans climate strategy, programme design, multi-stakeholder dialogue, review and evaluation across Africa, Asia and the Pacific. She has led teams to successfully mobilise over USD 65million in climate finance, most recently in Lesotho, Bhutan, India and Sri Lanka, and The Gambia.
Amongst many projects, she formulated a new strategy for UN Environment’s Global Adaptation Network and authored a UNEP briefing note on ecosystem-based adaptation and human rights. Penny has developed climate strategy papers to inform UN programming in the Pacific and Sri Lanka, and was team leader on both the Strategic Programme for Climate Resilience and the National Climate Change Policy of The Gambia. She was lead content specialist on a 12-country southern African regional research framework on climate change, specialist integrative writer and advisor on South Africa’s National Framework for Sustainable Development, and coordinated Phase 1 of a global multi-stakeholder process on private sector participation in water supply.
Her international advisory roles have included serving as an invited expert reviewer for the UNEP Overshoot Spotlight Report, 2026, and as an invited expert to the 2016 Future Earth/PROVIA/IPCC high-level workshop “Integrating science across the IPCC on climate risk and sustainable solutions: Lessons learnt from AR5 to inform AR6,” held in Stockholm, Sweden.
She is passionate about inclusive and innovative climate resilient development and adaptation that delivers transformational outcomes. Her creative leadership, communication skills, flexibility and deep understanding of developing country issues have proven their value in cross-cultural situations.
With a Master of Philosophy degree in Environmental Science, and previous scientific and arts qualifications – English, Philosophy, Russian and Evolutionary Biology – Penny believes diversity is strength. In her earlier years she worked as a circus performer.
