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Daniel Diaz

International Development

Daniel Diaz is a professional with a background in economics and finance, focusing on poverty alleviation and nature conservation.

With extensive field experience in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South / Southeast Asia, Daniel has led program design and project finance initiatives for regenerative agriculture and natural climate solutions.

Daniel Diaz holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business, and has also pursued an MBA exchange program at London Business School.

His academic journey includes a Bachelor's degree in Economics from Harvard University and an exchange program at Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

Daniel has played key roles in various organizations, working as a Consultant at TechnoServe, Investment Associate at LGT Venture Philanthropy Foundation, Project Finance Specialist at Hydro Nova, Consultant at Endeavor, and Senior Associate Consultant at Bain & Company. He has also served as a Community Lead at AmeriCorps.

Highlights

Aug 26 · linkedin

The Nature Conservancy providing one of the more objective / reasonable reactions to the recent publications on carbon offsets from forest conservation. Yes, we need urgent climate action, but we also urgently need that action to prove effective. Rigorous scientific assessment is the basis for that.

https://lnkd.in/eaMc2rrk

https://lnkd.in/eHtFtk7A

"what we need now is a systematic, evidence-based evaluation of these three different approaches [synthetic controls leveraged in recent publications, reference regions historically used by VERRA, and a nested jurisdictional approach in development by VERRA] for measuring the effectiveness of a crucial global climate solution...A high-quality carbon credit must be based on strong robust science. We must also realize that science will change and improve over time, which should be welcomed. The carbon markets have a steep challenge before them; they must evolve to continually incorporate rapidly improving science. However, as the world charts a path towards ever-better carbon projects—and ever-better methods for accounting for their climate, community and nature benefits—we simply cannot afford for uncertainty to lead to inaction."

Jun 3 · linkedin

Some thoughts regarding appropriate carbon pricing given the Delta carbon-neutrality lawsuit.

✅Compliance markets are what's needed. Emitters must be required to offset their activities. This would massively increase demand and prices for carbon credits. Higher prices are essential to (i) incentivize the industrial decarbonization that we need and to (ii) fairly value / finance projects involved in emission reduction.

✅Absent the political will for this compliance, voluntarily markets can help facilitate said financing through the purchase of carbon credits. But these purchases need not result in offsetting. Corporates are free to invest in emission-reducing projects purely for the social value associated with a liveable climate / functioning ecosystems.

✅If corporates are going to participate in voluntarily markets and use credits to offset their emissions, than they must do so at appropriate price levels and with the same due diligence they afford other investments.

✔Offsetting with carbon credits priced below project-development costs overstates corporate contributions towards a project's emission reductions. Pricing on the basis of cost-recovery must be the minimum.

✔More importantly, offsetting with carbon credits priced below their social value fails to drive the deep internal cuts that we need from industry. Pricing these offsets anywhere near the $75 / mt recommended by the IMF and most climate economists, would give many of us more confidence about their capacity to incentivize meaningful industrial change.

✔Finally, increased prices would encourage the due diligence warranted of any financially significant investment. This corporate scrutiny would reward higher-quality, more reputable projects; no one benefits when hundreds of millions are spent on "demonstrably false…junk," as claimed in the Delta suit.                             It is understandable that many view offsets as mere marketing to justify continued emission. Corporate buyers can begin to bolster their climate claims by voluntarily addressing the pricing failures in existing markets. This starts with fairly valuing emission reductions, and in so doing, re-assessing their core carbon footprint.

Daniel Diaz
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Location

London, England, United Kingdom