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Speaker: Justin Adams, Global Managing Director for Lands, The Nature Conservancy

Justin Adams will provide an introduction to the Nature Conservancy (TNC), one of the world’s largest environmental organisations operating in more than 35 countries. The talk will focus on a new initiative TNC is launching focused on promoting the role of nature-based solutions to climate change. The talk will highlight the need for land use to mitigate at least 20% of today’s greenhouse gas emissions, contributing a large share of required near-term action to meet the IPCC’s 2°C threshold, and will explore some of the pathways to achieve this. The talk will draw on TNC’s field experience around the world in tropical forests and other ecosystems as well as some emerging science his team are driving. Justin will examine the need for new policy approaches, experiences from the California and Australian carbon markets and the need for new business models and innovative finance to take solutions to scale.

Justin Adams is the Managing Director for Global Lands at The Nature Conservancy, where he leads a broad team of Conservancy staff operating at the intersection of global development and environmental challenges, including sustainable agriculture, forests and climate change, smart infrastructure, and indigenous and communal conservation.

He believes passionately that we have to find new models to balance competing priorities for land including food security, sustainable energy production and sustainable livelihoods, while also conserving and restoring nature to deliver the critical ecosystem services on which all life depends.

Justin has spent more than 20 years championing innovation and sustainability. Most recently he has worked as a Senior Advisor to the World Bank where he helped design and raise $300 million for the BioCarbon Fund’s Initiative for Sustainable Forested Landscapes. He also served as a Senior Advisor to the Duke of Westminster’s new agricultural fund – Wheatsheaf Investments and built a boutique advisory business working with NGOs and companies on issues including palm oil expansion, restoring degraded lands, improving smallholder yields and sustainable bioenergy.

Justin is a Fellow at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford and is also completing a role as Chairman of Mendel Plant Sciences.