Dr. Abeysinghe is a Senior Researcher and Environmental Lawyer at International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), London. Her interests are in the equity and fairness issues in international climate change negotiations, adaptation to climate change, and finance for climate change adaptation.
She is the legal advisor to the current Chair of the Least Developed Countries group in the UNFCCC negotiations, team leader of global climate governance programme and head of the European Capacity Building Initiative workshops programme at IIED. She is a lead author of the chapter on Climate Resilient Pathways: Adaptation, Mitigation and Sustainable Development in the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Prior to joining IIED in 2009, Achala worked as a Robert S. McNamara Research Fellow of the World Bank.