Soenke Kreft

Soenke Kreft

Executive Director, Chief Climate Risk Strategist

Education
PhD candidate, Wageningen University Public Administration and Policy Group
Education
MsC Global Change Management, Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (Germany)
Education
BsC Agricultural Science, Göttingen University (Germany) and University of Wales
Institute
UNU-EHS
Nationality
Germany
Contacts
kreft@ehs.unu.edu

Soenke Kreft leads the work of Munich Climate Insurance Initiative (MCII) which is hosted at United Nations University – Institute for Environmental and Human Security (UNU-EHS).

Mr Kreft's mission is to feed insurance-related expertise into international policy-making processes, as well as continuing the implementation of innovative ideas on how to make climate risk insurance work for poor and vulnerable people at risk from climate change.

Mr Kreft is a forerunner in international climate policy, having led the Climate Policy Team at the German NGO Germanwatch from 2013-2016, which allowed him to provide major input to the Paris Agreement (UNFCCC) and also contribute to other initiatives, such as the G7 InsuResilience.

Prior to his role as Executive Director, Mr Kreft was familiar with MCII for many years; he participated in the first phase of MCII’s project “Climate Risk Adaptation and Insurance in the Caribbean” in 2011, and was responsible for a large capacity development and agenda-setting programme with the Least Developed Countries group on climate-induced Loss and Damage, which in turn provided the rationale to launch the UNFCCC loss and damage thematic work and subsequent initiatives, such as G7 InsuResilience.

Mr Kreft has expert knowledge of the international UNFCCC processes, having participated in all UNFCCC negotiation sessions since 2008.

He is currently a prospective Phd candidate at Wageningen University Public Administration and Policy Group, where his research interest lies in exploring the governance effectiveness of the global adaptation architecture.