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Mr Nitin Desai

Advisor to IDEAglobal Group, parent company of IDEAcarbon

Biography

Mr Desai joined IDEAcarbon’s Advisory Board in 2008. Mr Nitin Desai is a Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General for Internet Governance, and chairs the Advisory Group that organises the annual UN Internet Governance Forum. Nitin is an Honorary Fellow of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in London. In India, he is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and advises the Indian Government on its national climate change action plan.

Mr Desai began his government career in 1973 in the Planning Commission of the Government of India. From 1985 to 1987, he served as Senior Economic Adviser for the World Commission on Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission) where he introduced the concept of sustainable development and was responsible for drafting the key chapters dealing with this aspect in the report of the Commission ‘Our Common Future’. From 1990 to 1993, Nitin was the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (1992 Rio Earth Summit). In that capacity one of his primary responsibilities was to coordinate the work of the Secretariat relating to the development of Agenda 21.

In 1993, Mr Desai was appointed at the Under-Secretary-General level to head the newly created Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development. The substantive work of this Department supported the various United Nations intergovernmental bodies, including the Commission on Sustainable Development. Desai was the Secretary-General of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (2002 Johannesburg Summit).

Key contributions and insights

• Mr Desai joined IDEAcarbon’s Advisory Board in 2008, announcing, “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.” To see the full Press Release click here.
• In October 2010, Nitin wrote the leading article for IDEAcarbon’s ‘India edition’ of CARBONfirst. Read his insights   Desai Oct 2010
• In July 2008, Mr Desai wrote an article about India’s action plan on climate change. Read the full article   Desai 2008