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IDEAcarbon has announced that Nitin Desai, a former Under Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs at the United Nations in New York, has joined as an advisor to its Board of Directors.
Mr. Desai has had a long and distinguished career in the Government of India and the United Nations. He has also worked in private industry and lectured at two UK Universities.
Mr. Nitin Desai said: "I am very happy to be joining a team with such expertise in the carbon markets. I have joined the IDEAcarbon Advisory Board because I believe that a global carbon market is the key that will open many opportunities for preventing catastrophic climate change. I am particularly interested in the work on rating of potential carbon credits as that will help in price discovery and deepen the market."
Ian Johnson, Chairman of IDEAcarbon said: "We're very pleased to welcome Nitin to our team. His global experience and advice will be invaluable as we develop our ratings and analytic services. I look forward to working with him."
In the Government of India Mr. Desai worked at senior levels in the Planning Commission from 1973 to 1987. From 1988 to 1990 he was the Chief Economic Adviser and Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance. Most recently he was asked by the Planning Commission to chair a Committee on Venture Capital and Technology innovation. Mr. Desai is also the Indian co-chair with Lord Chris Patten of the Indo-UK Roundtable set up by the two governments. He is a member of the Council on Climate Change chaired by the Prime Minister.
Mr. Desai's international involvement has been most prominent in the development and promotion of sustainable development as the goal of policy, first as Senior Adviser and key draftsman for "Our Common Future", the Report of the Brundtland Commission on Environment and Development and then as Deputy Secretary-General for the Rio Earth Summit, the manager of the Commission on Sustainable Development for its first decade and as the Secretary General for the Johannesburg Summit. He was also responsible for the organisation of the Copenhagen Summit on Social Development, the Monterrey Summit on Finance for Development and many other global events.
At present Mr. Desai is a Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General for Internet governance and chairs the Advisory Group that organises the annual UN Internet Governance Forum. He is an Honorary Fellow of the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. In India, he is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). He is also actively connected with several NGOs, and writes a monthly column for the Business Standard, an Indian daily.
Mr. Desai joins a distinguished panel of experts within IDEAcarbon, whose other resources include Christiana Figueres, Sam Fankhauser, Amul Gogna, Dora Vardis, Jaquelin Ligot and David Hanrahan. IDEAcarbon recently launched The Carbon Rating Agency, the world's first independent and professional rating agency for carbon assets. A key feature of the Agency's rating process is the collective judgement of a ratings committee.
Ratings Committee
Ian Johnson (Chair) joined IDEAcarbon following a distinguished career at the World Bank. For eight years he was the Bank's Vice President for Sustainable Development overseeing its work on climate change and carbon finance.
Christiana Figueres has been an official negotiator of the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol since 1995 and former member of the CDM Executive Board. She is also founder of the the Center for Sustainable Development in the Americas (CSDA), which she directed until 2003.
Amul Gogna (Managing Director) has over nineteen years of experience in credit ratings and business analysis. In 2006 he joined IDEAcarbon from ICRA, an associate of Moody's Investors Service in India. Highlights of his experience include pioneering work in the risk analysis and ratings field in the areas of infrastructure, healthcare and education.
Dora Vardis has 17 years of progressive executive level business experience in corporate finance and strategic planning. She is currently the Chief Operating Officer of Metropolitan Capital Advisors, a hedge fund based in New York.
Jaquelin Ligot was formerly Head of Energy Efficiency and Climate Change at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
David Hanrahan has worked for almost thirty years on water and urban issues worldwide, with a strong emphasis on environmental and sustainability aspects. For the past decade, he was at the World Bank dealing with policy issues and projects across all of the Bank's operational regions.
