VZCZCXYZ0017
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHLO #3712/01 2691651
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 261651Z SEP 07
FM AMEMBASSY LONDON
TO SECSTATE WASHDC 5592

UNCLAS LONDON 003712 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PINR SENV UK
SUBJECT: Bio Information on UK Delegation to Major Economies 
Meeting 
 
¶1.  (U) Following is biographic information on the five members of 
the UK delegation to the September 27-28 Major Economies Meeting in 
Washington DC on climate change and energy security.  The five 
people are Phil Woolas (Environment Minister at DEFRA), Michael 
Jacobs (Advisor to the Prime Minister), John Ashton (Special 
Representative on Climate Change, FCO), Henry Derwent (Climate 
Change Office, DEFRA), and Graham White (Energy Strategy Office, 
DBERR).  Photos are available upon request. 
 
Phil Woolas 
DEFRA Minister of Environment 
----------------------------- 
¶2.  (U) Philip James Woolas ("Phil") (born 11 December 1959 in 
Burnley, Lancashire, England) was appointed as Minister for the 
Environment at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural 
Affairs (DEFRA) in June 2007. His responsibilities include climate 
change, energy and sustainable development. Before moving to DEFRA, 
he was the Minister for Local Government at the Department for 
Communities and Local Government. 
Previously, Woolas was Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, and 
has held roles including Government Whip and Parliamentary Private 
Secretary at the Department of the Environment, Transport and the 
 
SIPDIS 
Regions. 
He contested the 1995 Littleborough and Saddleworth by-election and 
has been Member of Parliament for Oldham East and Saddleworth since 
1 May 1997. 
Before entering Parliament, he was Head of Communications at the GMB 
trade union (1991-1997) and was a television producer for the BBC 
and ITN (1988-1990). He was President of the National Union of 
Students from 1984-1986. 
He is a graduate in Philosophy from Manchester University. He is 
married with two sons. 
 
Michael Jacobs 
Special Adviser to the UK Prime Minister 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶3.  (U) Michael Jacobs is Special Adviser to the Prime Minister with 
responsibility for environment, energy and climate change policy. 
 
From 2004 to June 2007 Michael had responsibility for advising 
Gordon Brown as Chancellor of the Exchequer on the same set of 
issues.  These included environmental and transport tax policy 
(including emissions trading), for which the Chancellor had specific 
responsibility, and on both day-to-day decisions and strategic 
policy development in the environment, energy and climate change 
fields across the government as a whole. 
 
Among Michael's activities in the last two years, he led on the $2.6 
billion environmental tax reform package announced by the Chancellor 
in Budget 2007, building on previous budgets and pre-budget reports; 
was Treasury adviser on the UK Government's Energy Review, Energy 
White Paper, Planning White Paper, Climate Change Program Review and 
Climate Change Bill; was responsible for initiating, launching and 
disseminating the Stern Review on the economics of climate change; 
initiated and advanced the development of the Energy Investment 
Framework with the World Bank and regional development banks; 
initiated agreements on the production of biofuels in Southern 
Africa with Brazil, South Africa and Mozambique, and on avoided 
deforestation with Brazil and others, now being taken forward by the 
German G8 presidency; led on the creation of the $1.6 billion 
Environmental Transformation Fund for international development and 
environment; promoted the development of UK policy on carbon capture 
and storage, including a competition to launch a full-scale 
commercial demonstration and a collaborative North Sea study with 
Norway; helped to establish the UK's new $1.2 billion public-private 
Energy Technologies Institute for RD&D; initiated a 
market-transforming $100 million procurement program for 
microgeneration technologies; brokered the deal with lighting 
manufacturers and retailers to phase out high-energy lightbulbs in 
the UK by 2011; established initiatives with UK energy companies on 
new approaches to energy service markets and with retailers on 
energy efficiency in consumer goods; and helped establish the 
cross-departmental UK Office of Climate Change.  He has taken a 
central role in the development of the Government's approach to 
international climate change strategy; and wrote a number of major 
speeches for the Chancellor on environmental policy. 
 
Michael Jacobs is an environmental economist.  Prior to joining the 
Treasury his academic and policy work in the field of environmental 
economics and policy focused on environmental valuation, the policy 
application of sustainable development, the design of environmental 
taxation and other instruments of environmental policy, 
environmental innovation and growth, and the philosophy and politics 
of 'quality of life'.  He is author of a number of publications in 
these fields, including The Green Economy: Environment, Sustainable 
Development and the Politics of the Future (Pluto Press, 1991), 
Greening the Millennium? The New Politics of the Environment (ed, 
Blackwell, 1997), and Environmental Modernization: The New Labor 
Agenda (Fabian Society 1999). 
 
Michael Jacobs was formerly a research fellow at the London School 
of Economics and at the Centre for the Study of Environmental 
 
Change, Lancaster University; and before that a consultant in 
environmental policy and management with CAG Consultants, an 
employee-owned firm of which he was Managing Director.  From 1997 to 
2003 he was General Secretary of the Fabian Society.  His work there 
covered the full range of social and political issues, including a 
major Commission on the politics of taxation and citizenship.  His 
publications include Paying for Progress: A New Politics of Tax for 
Public Spending (Fabian Society 2000) and Progressive Globalization: 
Towards an International Social Democracy (Fabian Society 2003). 
 
 
John Ashton 
Special Representative on Climate Change - FCO 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
¶4.  (U) John Ashton is the Special Representative for Climate Change 
for the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), Director for 
Strategic Partnerships at LEAD International and is a founder of the 
non-for profit "E3G" (Third Generation Environmentalism). 
 
John Ashton was born in London on 7 November 1956, and educated at 
the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle Upon Tyne and at Cambridge 
University, where he studied Natural Sciences specializing in 
theoretical physics. In 1977, he spent a year as a research 
astronomer at the new Cavendish Laboratory. 
 
Ashton has spent most of his career in the British Diplomatic 
Service and the British Foreign Office (FCO). He joined the 
Diplomatic Service in 1978. From 1981-4, he served as science 
officer at the British Embassy in Beijing. He was head of the China 
desk at the FCO from 1984-86. He then spent two years seconded to 
the UK Cabinet Office before learning Italian and serving in the 
British Embassy in Rome from 1988-93. 
 
From 1993-7, he was seconded to the Hong Kong Government as Deputy 
Political Adviser to Governor Chris Patten, dealing with matters 
relating to Hong Kong's transition to Chinese sovereignty. He was 
closely involved in all major dealings between the UK and China 
concerning Hong Kong. During this period, his interest in the 
environment drew him towards the diplomacy of global change. 
 
John Ashton left the Foreign Service in 2002 to found E3G an 
independent not-for-profit organization that works in the public 
interest to accelerate the global transition to sustainable 
development. 
 
In June 2006 he rejoined the FCO as the UK's "climate ambassador" 
for the UK Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett. Ashton was appointed 
as a Special Representative for Climate Change. 
 
John Ashton is a Member of the Green College Centre for 
Environmental Policy and Understanding. He also serves on the 
Advisory Boards of the Climate Institute, Washington DC, and of the 
UK Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. 
 
He is married, to Judy; he has one son, John, and one stepson, 
Graham. 
 
Henry Derwent 
Director - Climate Change Office, DEFRA 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶5.  (U) Henry Derwent is Director of Climate, Energy and 
Environmental Risk at the UK Department for Environment, Food and 
Rural Affairs (DEFRA), where his responsibilities cover the 
environmental impacts of and policies towards climate change, 
sustainable energy, chemicals, biotechnology and genetic 
modification, the nuclear industry and radioactivity. During the UK 
Presidency of the EU he was the Special Representative to the Prime 
Minister on Climate Change. 
 
He has previously held a number of positions in the Departments of 
Transport and Environment, covering roads, transport industries, 
vehicle licensing, finance, local government and other fields. His 
last post was a spell as a Corporate Finance Executive on loan to a 
major international investment bank. 
 
Graham White 
Director, Energy Strategy and International Unit, DBERR 
--------------------------------------------- ---------- 
 
¶6.  (U) Graham White became the Head of the Energy Strategy and 
International Unit at the Department for Business, Enterprise and 
Regulatory Reform (DBERR) in July 2006.  The Unit is responsible for 
domestic and international strategy on energy policy. The Unit has 
specific responsibility for energy strategy, managing interagency 
co-ordination on sustainable energy, longer-term energy modelling, 
climate change, international and European energy policy. 
 
Previously Graham was a Director in the Energy Markets Unit 
responsible for energy information systems and the social and 
environmental impacts of energy markets.  He was a member of the UK 
Government emergency team that dealt with the petrol crisis in 
 
September 2000 and has been involved in subsequent emergency 
planning work. 
 
Graham has been involved in a number of international energy 
initiatives, including work to promote greater transparency in oil 
markets, the EU internal market and the G8 climate change package, 
and serves on the International Energy Agency's Governing Board.  He 
is currently chairman of the IEA's Oil Market Group. 
 
Graham joined the Civil Service from University and has worked in 
several departments (Office for National Statistics, Inland Revenue, 
Cabinet Office and the Treasury) before joining the Department of 
Trade and Industry (DTI) in 1989.  Since joining the DTI (now DBERR) 
he has worked on energy in a number of areas. 
 
 
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