Dr Arunabha Ghosh is an internationally recognised public policy expert, author, columnist, and institution builder. 

He is the founder-CEO, since 2010, of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, and has led CEEW to the top ranks as one of Asia's leading policy research institutions and among the world’s 20 best climate think-tanks. With experience in 48 countries, he previously worked at Princeton, Oxford, UNDP (New York), and WTO (Geneva). The Asia Society honoured him recently with the 2022 Asia Game Changer Award, for his and CEEW’s “incredible work, which is making a real difference for India and for the planet”. 

Arunabha advises governments, industry, civil society, and international organisations around the world. He currently serves on Government of India’s G20 Finance Track Advisory Group and advises the Sherpa Track for India’s G20 Presidency in 2022-23. In 2022, the UN Secretary-General appointed him to the High-level Expert Group on the Credibility and Accountability of Net-Zero Announcements by Non-State Actors. Dr Ghosh is currently Vice-Chair of the UN Committee for Development Policy, having been first nominated to the UNCDP by the UN Secretary-General in 2018. Arunabha is a member of several international expert advisory groups: Global Commission on the Economics of Water; High-Level Group of Economists, constituted by the French president for the One Planet Lab; and the High-Level Consultative Group for the U.S. Department of State’s Energy Transition Accelerator. In 2020, the Government of India appointed him Co-Chair of the energy, environment and climate change track for India’s Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP2020). He has been appointed the Co-Chair of the T20 Task Force on climate and energy for the G20 Presidencies led by Indonesia in 2022 and India in 2023. 

He is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Clean Air, having previously been a member of the Global Future Council on Energy. He is the co-author/editor of four books and dozens of research papers and reports. His 2019 TED Talk on air quality (Mission 80-80-80) has crossed 270,000 views. He was a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, an Asia Society Asia 21 Young Leader, and a Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellow (fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network). He was previously an Oxford-Princeton Global Leadership Fellow. In 2023, the Government of Australia appointed him a Canberra Fellow.

Dr Ghosh led CEEW into a leading think-tank soon after its founding in August 2010. He was actively involved in conceptualising and designing the International Solar Alliance. He conceptualised and was a founder of the Clean Energy Access Network (CLEAN), an industry body for hundreds of decentralised energy entrepreneurs. He serves on the Board of Directors of ClimateWorks Foundation, and is a member of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group. He is a member of the Trilateral Commission.  

Dr Ghosh has advised India’s Prime Minister’s Office, several ministries, state governments and international organisations on a range of subjects. He was invited by the Government of France as a Personnalité d’Avenir to advise on the COP21 climate negotiations. He also advised on HFC negotiations under the Montreal Protocol. He served as a member of an international high-level panel of the Environment of Peace initiative. He served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Energy. He has been a member of Track II dialogues with ten countries/regions; and formulated the Maharashtra-Guangdong Partnership on Sustainability. He served on the Executive Committee of the India-U.S. PACEsetter Fund. He was a member of the Environment Pollution (Prevention & Control) Authority for the National Capital Region (2018-2020). He has presented to heads of state and legislatures across the world on varied topics including global governance, international relations and human development, climate, energy, natural resources and water, trade and intellectual property, development assistance, conflict and extremism. 

Widely published, he was lead author of Stockholm+50: Unlocking a Better Future (SEI-CEEW, 2022), and Jobs, Growth and Sustainability: A New Social Contract for India’s Recovery (CEEW, 2020). Arunabha’s co-authored essay “Rethink India’s energy strategy” in Nature, the world’s most cited scientific journal, was selected as one of 2015’s ten most influential essays. He is co-author of Energizing India: Towards a Resilient and Equitable Energy System (SAGE, 2017); Human Development and Global Institutions: Evolution, impact, reform (Routledge, 2016); and Climate Change: A Risk Assessment (FCO, 2015). He is the co-editor of The Palgrave Handbook of the International Political Economy of Energy (2016). He has been a co-author of three UNDP Human Development Reports, including the pathbreaking Beyond Scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis (2006). 

His regular columns are widely read and have been published in the Business Standard, Financial Express, Euractiv, Forbes, Hindustan Times, Indian Express, Mint, Nikkei Asian Review, The Hindu, The Times of India, among other platforms. He has hosted a documentary on water in Africa, featured in National Geographic and Discovery Channel documentaries on energy and climate change, and delivered a TED Talk on air quality. He has been regularly interviewed on Al Jazeera, BBC, CGTN, CNBC, CNN News 18, Gulf News, India Today TV, NDTV, Voice of America, etc. 

He holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford (Clarendon Scholar; Marvin Bower Scholar), an M.A. (First Class) in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (Balliol College, Oxford; Radhakrishnan Scholar); and topped Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.