GEGI Postdoc at UN Climate Talks
GEGI pre-doctoral fellow Rebecca Ray traveled to Lima, Peru in December to present GEGI’s research on the environmental impacts of China in Latin America at meetings around the United Nations climate change meetings.
Held from Dec. 1 to Dec. 14, the UN Framework on Climate Change Conference achieved a range of important outcomes and “firsts” in the history of the international climate process.
- Pledges were made by both developed and developing countries prior to and during the COP that took the capitalization of the new Green Climate Fund (GCF) past an initial $10 billion target.
- Levels of transparency and confidence-building reached new heights as several industrialized countries submitted themselves to questioning about their emissions targets under a new process called a Multilateral Assessment.
- The Lima Ministerial Declaration on Education and Awareness-raising calls on governments to put climate change into school curricula and climate awareness into national development plans.
A research program of the Center for Finance, Law & Policy, the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, and the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, the Global Economic Governance Initiative (GEGI) was founded in 2008 to advance policy-relevant knowledge about governance for financial stability, human development, and the environment.
GEGI’s research shows that Latin America’s trade with China is significantly more carbon-intensive than the region’s trade with the rest of the world. Left unmitigated, such economic activity could be a source of environmental degradation and a drag on economic growth.
Rebecca Ray is pre-doctoral fellow at GEGI. She is a PhD student in economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research examines development strategies in Latin America, and the impact of international finance on domestic labor markets, living standards, and environmental sustainability. Prior to her UMass studies, she served as a research associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. She holds an MA in International Development from the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. Her academic fieldwork has included advising the Partnership for Food Industry Development in Managua, Nicaragua and the Institute for Sustainability Education and Action on Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada.