Cleo Paskal

Cleo Paskal is an Associate Fellow in both the Asia-Pacific program and the Energy, Environment and Resources department at Chatham House (a.k.a. Royal Institute of International Affairs)[1], as well as a Non-Resident Senior Fellow for the Indo-Pacific in the Center on Military and Political Power (Chaired by H.R. McMaster) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

In September 2015, she was awarded a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Visiting Fellowship [2] to lead a multi-year research project based at the Centre d'études et de recherches internationales de l'Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM) looking at strategic shifts in the Indo-Pacific.[3] As part of the project, she set up The Oceania Research Project.[4] She was a Visiting Fellow at Gateway House (Indian Council on Global Relations) in 2019.

Her book, Global Warring: How Environmental, Economic and Political Crises Will Redraw the World Map (Palgrave Macmillan) won a US$5000 Awards of Merit in the Grantham Prize for Excellence in Reporting on the Environment awards as well as the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction. She also co-authored the bestseller Spielball Erde: Machtkämpfe im Klimawandel (Random House), with German TV news anchor Claus Kleber.

Paskal specializes in the confluence of the "three geos" (the geopolitical, geoeconomic, and geophysical). This includes the geopolitical, security, and economic implications of environmental change (including climate change), as well as Indo-Pacific security, including Oceania. She has contributed chapters to many peer reviewed academic books and has researched a range of strategic topics, including balance of power issues in the Pacific, and corruption in India and China. She has briefed officials from dozens governments and spoken at defense academies in the UK, India, Canada, Oman and elsewhere.

Cleo Paskal is an award-winning writer who has contributed to, among many others, The Economist, The World Today, Conde Nast Traveller, The Independent, Canadian Geographic, The Telegraph, The Times, Chicago Tribune, Australian Financial Review, New Zealand Herald, The Farmer's Almanac, Lonely Planet, and the Sunday Times as well as hosting BBC radio shows. She has had columns with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, National Post, and the Toronto Star. Having attended McGill University, she co-founded that school's satire magazine, The Red Herring. She also wrote the Primetime Emmy Award winning TV series Cirque du Soleil: Fire Within. She is the Sunday Guardian North America Special Correspondent .