Archive for the ‘Speakers’ Category
Aalders
Monday, April 12th, 2010
Mr Aalders joined IDEAcarbon as Partner (operations and business development) and its sister company, the Carbon Rating Agency in September 2009. Prior to his appointment at IDEACarbon, Edwin was a Director of IETA (since 2004) with responsibilities covering all of IETAs activities related to the Flexible Mechanisms and Voluntary Market as well as the management of its offices. Between November 2007 and October 2008, he acted as the CEO of the Voluntary Carbon Standard Association (VCSA) before taking on an advisory role. Mr Aalders has over 10 years of experience as an assessor in environmental auditing and climate change programmes whilst working for SGS between 1992 and 2004, before he joined IETA.
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Markowitz
Friday, April 9th, 2010
Kenneth Markowitz advises leading public- and private-sector clients on the risks and opportunities associated with energy and climate regulation, policy and economic stimulus. Mr. Markowitz provides counsel on issues associated with clean technologies, emissions trading, greenhouse gas offsets, renewable fuels and energy efficiency.
Mr. Markowitz assists clients with policy development and advocacy before the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, other executive branch agencies, Congress, and international institutions. Mr. Markowitz actively participates in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations on issues including the Clean Development Mechanism and technology transfer on behalf of public and private sector clients.
Mr. Markowitz serves as the Deputy Director of the International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement, the leading network of government officials from over 120 countries. Mr. Markowitz leads international initiatives among regulators, business and international organizations to strengthen compliance, improve investor confidence and ensure environmental integrity in the emissions trading systems and other climate change regulatory programs.
Mr. Markowitz previously served as a senior attorney at U.S. EPA, and in private practice as an environmental lawyer. Mr. Markowitz earned his B.B.A. in finance from Emory University in 1985 and his J.D. in 1989 from American University’s Washington College of Law. A frequent author and speaker, Mr. Markowitz serves on the adjunct faculty of the Washington College of Law; as a senior fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara Bren School of Environmental Science and Management; and as a co-chair of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Commission on Environmental Law’s specialist group on compliance and enforcement.
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Shimada
Thursday, April 8th, 2010
Kunihiko (Kuni) Shimada is Principal International Policy Coordinator and Principal International Negotiator at the Ministry of the Environment Japan, and is in charge of establishing negotiation strategies for the UNFCCC. At the UNFCCC process, he has been working as a lead negotiator of the Japanese delegation for future issues, technology, adaptation and compliance, as well as servicing as a co-chair of the AWGLCA Contact Group on Development and Transfer of Technologies and Chair on Various Mechanisms for mitigation as well as a member of the Expert Group on Technology Transfer (EGTT) and Compliance Committee. Kuni has been elected as the chair of the Compliance Committee for the two year term in 2010 and 2011. Moreover, Kuni has chaired several international groups, including OECD/IEA Annex I Expert Group on UNFCCC as well as served as an international expert on issues related to compliance, adaptation, energy, technology, financial mechanisms and carbon markets through his continuous and active roles played in climate change negotiations since 1997.
Prior to the current positions, Kuni worked for the UN as one of the lead mediators for international peace and security issues as well as negotiator for a wide range of issues, including human rights, women’s empowerment, and sustainable development and involved in negotiation/mediation for Kosovo, East Timor (currently Timore-Leste), and many other cases.
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Semcer
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010
Melissa Semcer works for the California Public Utilities Commission as a Senior Analyst with the Climate Change Market Strategies Section. Her work focuses primarily on evaluating the role of combined heat and power technologies in a carbon constrained world, specifically developing policies and programs to increase the amount of efficient CHP in California. Prior to her current role, Melissa was an analyst on the Long Term Procurement proceeding and has been heavily involved in the California Qualifying Facility Program. Melissa’s previous experience includes evaluating the potential impact of various national climate change policies with the Climate Change Policy Partnership at Duke University and developing a supplier diversity program for a Fortune 200 company. Melissa holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Management from Duke University and a Bachelor’s from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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van Aelstyn
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
Nicholas W. (“Nico”) van Aelstyn is a Principal in the San Francisco office of Beveridge and Diamond, P.C., and has more than 18 years of environmental counseling and litigation experience. Nico co-chairs B&D’s Climate Change practice, and has been actively engaged on behalf of stakeholders in California’s AB 32 implementation process and the Western Climate Initiative’s development of a regional cap-and-trade program. He also helped to form and serves as counsel to the Carbon Offset Providers Coalition (www.carbonoffsetproviders.org). His environmental counseling practice includes climate change, sustainability, international obligations, Brownfields redevelopment, regulatory and transactional matters. His active litigation practice concentrates primarily on subsurface contamination issues with cost recovery actions, regulatory enforcement actions, and representation of PRPs and PRP groups (as common counsel) at Superfund sites. His litigation experience also includes intellectual property, commercial, real estate, and appellate litigation matters. He has handled matters in state and federal courts across the country, including the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as various administrative fora. He has published articles concerning climate change and other environmental issues, and is a regular speaker on these issues.
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Mazzacurati
Friday, April 2nd, 2010
Emilie Mazzacurati heads Point Carbon’s North American Research team where she focuses on climate policy and market analysis. She has published extensively on federal climate legislation, regional programs and the interaction of carbon with other commodity markets. Emilie also frequently represents Point Carbon in the media and at conferences. Before joining Point Carbon, she worked as a policy advisor for the Deputy Mayor of Paris for the environment and as an analyst at the United Nations Environment Program. Emilie holds a Master of Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley and a Master of Political Science from the Institute of Political Studies of Paris, France.
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Waibel
Friday, April 2nd, 2010
Udo Waibel is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Co-Founder of Hara Software. Prior to joining Hara, Mr. Waibel spent over 14 years at SAP in senior management roles and has conceived, built and managed major product innovations for SAP including Employee Self-Service, Resource and Portfolio Management, Duet and Alloy (formerly “Project Atlantic”). Each of these products defined new standards for enterprise application and architecture and independently generated over $100 million dollars for SAP on an annual basis. Within Hara, Mr. Waibel is responsible for overall product development and technology. Mr. Waibel holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science and Business Administration from the University of Mannheim, Germany.
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Busch
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
Chris Busch, Ph.D., is the Policy Director at the Center for Resource Solutions where he promotes advances in energy and climate policy. Chris is a member of the Economic and Technology Advancement Advisory Committee, one of two advisory bodies explicitly created under California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, AB (Assembly Bill) 32. He is also a member of the Climate Economics Taskforce of Economics for Equity and the Environment. Previously, Chris worked as Climate Economist with the Union of Concerned Scientists. In 2006, Chris co-authored the report Managing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in California while he was with UC Berkeley’s California Climate Change Center. Prior to this, he served as Senior Research Associate at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, working in the Lab’s International Energy Studies Group as well as its Appliance and Lighting Standards Group. Chris holds a Ph.D. in environmental economics from the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics and a master’s degree in public policy from the Goldman School of Public Policy, both from the University of California, Berkeley.
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Derwent
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
Henry Derwent became the President and CEO of the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) in February 2008. Previously, as international climate change Director for the UK Government, he oversaw the UK’s role in the international negotiations, in the G8 (especially as Prime Minister’s special representative during the UK G8 Presidency in 2005) and in other forums. Henry has been closely associated with the development of greenhouse gas trading in the UK and Europe from its earliest days. He previously had responsibilities for all aspects of climate change and sustainable energy in the UK as well as air quality and industrial pollution control. Before that, he was an international corporate finance executive at a major investment bank.
The International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) is a non-profit business organization of major companies and the leading voice of this community on emissions trading, whose goal is to ensure that the objectives of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change and, ultimately, climate protection, are met. IETA works for the development of an active, global greenhouse gas market, consistent across national boundaries. IETA currently has over 175 member companies from around the world, including global leaders in oil, electricity, cement, aluminum, chemical, paper and banking; as well as leading firms in the data verification and certification, brokering and trading, legal and consulting industries.
IETA members seek to develop an emission’s trading regime that results in real and verifiable greenhouse gas emission reductions, balancing economic efficiency with environmental integrity and social equity.
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Gibbs
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
In January 2010 Governor Schwarzenegger appointed Michael Gibbs to the California Environmental Protection Agency as Deputy Secretary for Climate Change. In this capacity, Gibbs is the lead deputy for the Agency’s climate change initiatives, including coordinating initiatives across state agencies and supporting the Western Climate Initiative. Prior to being named Deputy Secretary, Gibbs served for two-and-a-half years as Assistant Secretary.
Gibbs has more than 25 years of experience in energy and environmental policy analysis and program implementation. He has worked on emission inventory methods, emission reduction analyses, and program development throughout his career.
Prior to joining Cal/EPA, Gibbs served as Senior Vice President of ICF International where he worked as a consultant and director of the Los Angeles Office. He worked with the U.S. technical delegation leading up to the signing of the Montreal Protocol in 1987 that established the international framework for protecting stratospheric ozone. Subsequently, Gibbs supported the development and implementation of the U.S. EPA Methane Program and ENERGY STAR program.
Gibbs has traveled extensively, including to support the U.S. Country Studies Program which provided capacity building assistance to 40 countries enabling them to prepare and submit national greenhouse gas emission inventories. As co-chair of the Methane Working Group, he helped draft the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas.
He led the design and delivery of local energy efficiency programs in California for both residential and commercial sectors, and developed a demand response program to help small commercial customers reduce electric demand during peak periods.
Gibbs holds a Bachelors of Science degree in Civil Engineering and Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University, and a Masters degree in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Gibbs is married with two children.
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