FOREST CARBON MARKETS OF THE FUTURE (PLENARY)
November 28th, 2022 at 3:30pm ET
The global compliance carbon market, regulated by governments, reached an estimated $760 billion in 2022, rising 164% in one year. Like Colombia before it, many anticipate that Brazil’s carbon market will come online soon. How will these markets impact the Amazon? How can we ensure that forest carbon credits have high integrity? What is the status of the California Tropical Forest Standard? How could new standards for nature accounting promoted by the White House and other governments have an effect? What about the participation of indigenous people?
Alasdair Were
International Emissions Trading Association
The International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) is a non-profit business organisation created in June 1999 to establish a functional international framework for trading in greenhouse gas emission reductions. Membership includes leading international companies from across the carbon trading cycle. IETA members seek to develop an emissions trading regime that results in real and verifiable greenhouse gas emission reductions, while balancing economic efficiency with environmental integrity and social equity.
Marcelo Ramos
Brazilian Congress
A leading proponent of Brazilian carbon market legislation, Marcelo Ramos Rodrigues is a Brazilian lawyer and politician, affiliated with the Social Democratic Party (PSD). He was councilor of Manaus and state deputy of Amazonas. Previously, he also held the positions of Municipal Undersecretary for Sports in Manaus between 2005 and 2006 under the management of Mayor Serafim Corrêa and Chief of Staff of the Department of International Relations of the Ministry of Sports in the Lula government in 2006 under the command of Orlando Silva. He began his political life by being president of the student body and then national leader of the Socialist Youth Union.
Andrea Johnson
Climate and Land Use Alliance
Andrea has worked for 20 years on the technical, social and political aspects of conserving tropical ecosystems, cleaning up supply chains, and defending the rights of forest communities. She worked with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute’s PRORENA initiative; led the growth of the Environmental Investigation Agency’s Forest Campaign, achieving passage of the 2008 Amendments to the US Lacey Act; and at CATIE, one of Central America’s pre-eminent institutions for research and training, where she led monitoring and evaluation for Project Finnfor II to support value chain development for community forestry enterprises and plantation smallholders in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala. She is currently restoring 12 hectares of cattle pasture on the Osa Peninsula to native forest and agroforestry systems. Andrea received a B.A. from Harvard University and a Master’s in Environmental Science from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
The Climate and Land Use Alliance seeks to realize the potential of forests and land use to mitigate climate change, benefit people, and protect the environment.
Tracey Osborne
Center for Climate Justice
Tracey Osborne is Associate Professor and Presidential Chair in the Management of Complex Systems Department. She also serves as the Founding Director of the UC Center for Climate Justice. Her research focuses on the social and political economic dimensions of climate change mitigation in tropical forests and the role of Indigenous Peoples, the politics of climate finance (with particular emphasis on carbon markets), global environmental governance, and climate equity and justice. She has worked on these issues globally with extensive field experience in Mexico and the Amazon (Peru, Ecuador and Guyana). Her work has been published in high-impact geography, social science and interdisciplinary journals, and she has been invited to share her research internationally in academic and non-academic venues such as Conference of the Parties climate change meetings. She received her PhD from the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley.
The Center for Climate Justice is a system-wide initiative to address climate change as a social justice and equity issue. The center’s mission is “to leverage and harness the power of the university to support, strengthen and build an emergent climate justice ecosystem and social movement that solves the climate crisis through science, systems thinking and social-ecological justice. It does this through innovative broader-impact research, transformative education and public engagement.
Jason Gray
Governor’s Climate and Forests Task Force
Jason Gray is an environmental attorney and climate policy expert who serves as Project Director of the Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force (GCF Task Force) at the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA School of Law. Jason previously served as chief of California’s Cap and-Trade Program at the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the state agency tasked with formulating and implementing the state’s world-leading climate policies. In this position, Jason oversaw a staff of more than 30 experts and managers tasked with designing and implementing California’s carbon market. He represented CARB within the GCF Task Force for nearly a decade, and previously served as manager of the Cap-and-Trade Program’s market monitoring section and as an attorney supporting the development and implementation of climate and air quality regulations at CARB. Jason has also worked on environmental education, biodiversity conservation, local capacity building, and sustainable development projects with the U.S. Peace Corps and WWF in the Central African country of Gabon. He received a B.A. in Biology and French from Gonzaga University, and a J.D. and Certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law from Lewis & Clark Law School.
Brian Weinberg
Foundation for Regeneration
Brian Weinberg is an experienced operator (for companies $500k – $5 million in revenue) and investor (about $100 million in debt/equity deals) with a decade plus history working in philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, and impact investing. For the last 5 years, he has deep dived into all things regeneration (economics, agriculture, culture, finance, human development) as a consultant and advisor with several recognizable leaders and organizations in the regenerative movement.
Tuntiak Katan
Global Alliance of Territorial Communities
Tuntiak Katan, a member of the Shuar people, is the general coordinator of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (GATC) and vice coordinator of the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA). Tuntiak Katan was born in the Tuutinentsa Shuar community, Morona Santiago Province, in the Amazonian region of Ecuador. Since 2000, he has worked on social, cultural and environmental projects among the different cultures in the Amazon Basin.
