Dr. Kanako Morita, is a senior researcher at the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, a visiting research fellow at the United Nations University-Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability, and a project assistant professor at Keio University.
She is a lead author for the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report Working Group III Chapter 15 Investment and finance, and was a contributing author for the Fifth Assessment Report Working Group III Chapter 7 Energy systems. She earned her Ph.D. from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 2010. She attended the Young Scientist Summer Program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in 2005, and was a visiting researcher at the University of California Santa Barbara from 2006 to 2007. From 2010 to 2013, she worked at the National Institute for Environmental Studies.
Her research interests focus on the effective governance and financial mechanisms for the Sustainable Development Goals, and climate change mitigation and adaptation (with a focus on energy, ecosystems, and forestry sectors). Furthermore, she attended the UNFCCC COP16, COP17, COP18, COP19, COP22, COP23, and COP24; the CBD COP10, COP 11, COP12; the UNCCD COP10; and intersessional meetings as a member of the Japanese delegation.