Staff
Robert O'Sullivan
Robert O'Sullivan was trained as a lawyer and specializes in regulatory and policy aspects of the CDM and JI. His diverse experience covers afforestation and reforestation projects through to energy projects as well as management of CER purchase programs. He is an expert in carbon finance transactions, both on the buyers’ and sellers’ sides of the negotiation table and was one of the lead drafters ofthe CERSPA initiative. He recently relocated to the Washington D.C. area as the Executive Director of Climate Focus North America.
Prior to joining Climate Focus, Robert was a lawyer in the World Bank’s Carbon Finance Business where he provided legal and regulatory advice to Carbon Finance Unit and the Bank's carbon funds including the Prototype Carbon Fund, Netherlands Clean Development Mechanism Facility and BioCarbon Fund. He holds degrees in sciences, arts and law from the University of Queensland in Australia and a Masters of Law from The American University in Washington, DC.
Adriaan Korthuis is a founding partner and director of Climate Focus. He is an authority on the design and implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, with a particular focus on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI). Prior to founding Climate Focus, Adriaan was initiator and programme manager of the ERUPT and CERUPT programmes of the Dutch government. He worked successfully in government-funded programmes as the bridge between government and business.
Adriaan holds an MSc in Food Science from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. His down-to-earth approach is combined with the technical insight of an engineer and the market savvy of an international business developer.
Dr. Charlotte Streck is a founding partner and director of Climate Focus. She is an internationally recognized expert on the law and policy of climate change and emissions trading. She advises on the regulatory framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, the European Emissions Trading Scheme, emerging US emissions trading systems, and voluntary carbon standards. She has extensive experience in drafting and negotiating complex carbon agreements, related, among others, to establishing carbon funds, implementing projects, and the contracting intermediaries.
Charlotte is a leader in the debate around the development of new finance mechanisms in the area of avoided deforestation, post-2012 policy solutions, Green Investment Schemes and a reform of the Kyoto Mechanisms. She advises several governments and international organizations in the context of post-2012 negotiations, particular in the area of REDD.
Bamshad Houshyani
As a CDM/JI expert, Bamshad Houshyani is a renewable energy specialist and has a broad technical background in the fields of river andhydro-structures engineering.Before moving to the Netherlands in order to pursue an education in the discipline of energy science, he workedat DNM Co.(representing TORO U.S. and Irritrol Europe in Iran) as a technical and development manager for four years (2001-2005), in which he gained worthwhile experience in water resources development and management. In the Netherlands, besides other renewable energy technologies,he acquired extensive knowledge in the field of solar cell (photovoltaic) energy modeling.
He has a B.Sc. in Irrigation and Drainage engineering from Guilan University, a M.Sc.in river and hydro-structures engineering from T.M. Tehran Universityand a M.Sc. in Energy Science from Utrecht University.
Carina Bracer
Carina Bracer specializes in the institutional and policy issues related to climate change in the land use sector. She has worked on REDD Readiness analyses covering the actions at national and subnational levels for emissions reductions, the MRV options and financial implications. Her work related to the project development process for carbon transactions (in both voluntary and regulatory markets) focuses on advising on the institutional and operational structure and expertise they require. Prior to joining Climate Focus, she managed a broad network of practitioners developing payment deals in carbon, water and biodiversity throughout Latin America, via the Katoomba Group in Forest Trends. This exposed her to best practices and to national and international regulatory and market drivers. She helped initiate an ‘Incubator’ to support forest carbon based projects gain access to markets, learning the lifecycle of project development and the legal underpinnings of contract development. From this, and her earlier work at the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance, she acquired knowledge of carbon standards, their procedures and role in forest carbon markets.
Jelmer Hoogzaad
Jelmer Hoogzaad is a technical expert in CDM and JI project assessment, risk management, and Green Investment Schemes. Before joining Climate Focus, Jelmer worked as a project officer at the ERUPT programme of the Dutch government. He also gained specific knowledge of renewable energy and energy efficiency in economies in transition at Cargill in Ukraine. Jelmer has an MSc in Natural Sciences and Innovation Management from Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
Juan Pablo Castro
Juan Pablo Castro is an environmental planning specialistand CDM and JI project manager at Climate Focus. He has experience in the design, implementation and risk assessment of renewable energy/energy efficiency, forestry, water, and waste management projects in Latin America and Asia. Prior to joining Climate Focus he worked as an analyst for a consulting firm in the Washington DC area, developing projects for institutions such as the World Bank, IADB,and USAID,amongst others.
Juan Pablo has a background in science and policy. He holds a BSc degree in Political Science from Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, an MSc in Environmental Sciences from The Johns Hopkins University in the US, and an MSc in International Public Administration from Erasmus University in the Netherlands.
Karla Lieberg
Karla Lieberg supports Climate Focus in the Chinese CDM market. Based in Beijing, she sources projects, builds face-to-face contacts with project owners and is our focal point for communication with our Chinese partners and for the on-site assessment of projects.
Karla has a degree in International Business Communication in Asia/Mandarin from Konstanz University of Applied Sciences that combines knowledge of Chinese language, history and culture with Business Administration and Economics. She has gained a thorough understanding of the Chinese renewable energy market by writing her thesis on the Chinese wind power market and by working on a GTZ wind power project in China.
Matthieu Wemaere
Matthieu Wemaëre is a Senior Lawyer registered at the Paris and Brussels Bar Associations. He provides legal assistance and advice on climate change issues in general, and on emissions trading in particular, to international organizations, governments, regional and local public authorities, private companies and NGOs.
Matthieu worked for 6 years for the European Commission, was lawyer in the Waste Management Unit of DG ENV, and was a member of the European Commission Delegation for the UNFCCC negotiations on implementation measures of the Kyoto Protocol. Since 2003, he has provided assistance to some Member States’ Governments for drafting national measures transposing the EU ETS and the Linking Directives and implementing the Monitoring Guidelines, as well as, the Registry Regulation. Currently, Matthieu also lectures International and EU environmental law at the Aix-en-Provence Institute of Political Sciences (Master on environmental management and public affairs). He has also annotated related EU legislation in the French Environmental Code edited by LITEC.
Mercedes Fernandez
Mercedes Fernández is an environmental law expert with a focus on the legal and regulatory aspects of the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol and the EU ETS. Her current work includes carbon finance transactions particularly in Spain, Portugal and South America.
Mercedes worked with the European Business Council for Sustainable Energy (E5), the European Commission Taiex programme and the German Öko Institutbefore joining Climate Focus. She studied law in Santander, Liège, New York and Florence. Mercedes is a strong communicator and serves as the linchpin in Spanish speaking markets.
michael coren
Michael Coren is a specialist in carbon markets and forestry at Climate Focus. He has worked for the World Bank in Indonesia advising the design of avoided deforestation policy with the Indonesia Forest Climate Alliance, and managed feasibility studies of forest carbon and ecosystem service projects across Southeast Asia. He has experience applying voluntary and compliance market standards, as well as financial and carbon modeling in tropical forests. Michael studied economics and forestry at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies focusing on economic factors affecting global distribution of forest carbon investments. Prior to arriving at Yale, Michael worked as a journalist writing and reporting for the Globe and Mail, Outside magazine, and Newsweek. He served as the managing editor of the Phnom Penh Post in Cambodia and as the science and technology producer for CNN.com in Atlanta.
moritz von unger
Moritz von Unger is senior legal counsel specialising in European, public international and private international law. He teams up our carbon market practice and advises on regulatory issues and questions related to the hybrid global climate change regime. Moritz passed the German Bar Exam with honours and holds a PhD in international law. Moritz has extensive experience in drafting and negotiating complex, multi-jurisdictional contracts and in advising in the field of international procurement and litigation. As a former member of the European Commission staff, he is an expert on European institutional affairs, law-making and international regulation.
Sandra Greiner
Sandra Greiner is a senior project manager at Climate Focus and an expert in developing CDM and JI projects. Sandra has extensive experience guiding energy and waste management projects through the CDM registration process, and she is a leading expert in baseline methodology development.
Before joining Climate Focus, Sandra was a Carbon Finance Specialist at the World Bank where she was responsible for integrating carbon finance into the lending business of the East Asia Urban Development Sector Unit. Sandra holds a PhD in economics from Hamburg University in Germany.
Stacy Riding
Stacy Riding is Climate Focus' Communications Officer. She attended the University of Georgia and has two bachelors degrees, namely in Spanish Language and Literature (minor in Latin American Studies) and Psychology and Human Services. Stacy was born in Curaçao and has lived and worked in the United States, Curaçao, and now in the Netherlands.
Thiago Chagas
Thiago Chagas is lawyer specialised in international law, climate change regulatory issues and in the Clean Development Mechanism, CDM. Thiago has experience in assisting in the sourcing and development of CDM projects in developing countries. Prior to joining Climate Focus, Thiago has worked for both private firms and non-governmental organizations in Brazil. As a consultant, he has advised on the institutional and legal aspects of the implementation of a variety of CDM projects, including renewable energies, energy efficiency and methane recovery and flaring.
Thiago holds an LLB from Pontificia Universidade Catolica de São Paulo and a Master of Laws in International Law from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
Yuan Chi (David)
Yuan Chi (David) is a Project Manager in the Climate Focus Beijing Office. He supports the Beijing team in project sourcing, communication with local partners and project owners, as well as project assessments.
Before joining Climate Focus, he worked at the CDM Center of Excellence in Beijing as a CDM Project Manager where he supported project developers with PDD development, project validation and registration..
David has a MSc degree in Sustainable Process Management from Heriot-Watt University in the UK and two bachelor degrees, one in Process Control Engineering from Beijing Biochemical Engineering University, and the other in Chemical Engineering from University of Paisley in the UK.