International Climate Policy Fellow

The Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD) is recruiting a full-time International Climate Policy Fellow to focus on climate mitigation, adaptation, and resilience, ideally with some experience with non-CO₂ mitigation. The position is suitable for early to mid-career professionals. The candidate should have a public-interest spirit and desire to help avoid catastrophic climate impacts. Good writing skills are essential. The position is for one year, with the possibility of an extension for a second year.

Minimum Qualifications

• Familiarity with climate science.
• Demonstrated commitment to climate and environmental progress.
• Excellent writing and editing skills.
• 0-5 years of experience.

Desired Qualifications

• Master’s Degree or equivalent.
• Demonstrable work experience or research background relevant to IGSD’s non-CO₂, fast mitigation efforts, in particular methane or HFCs.
• Legislative drafting or international law experience.
• Spanish fluency.

Responsibilities

Working with IGSD team members, the Policy Fellow will play a key role in implementing IGSD’s fast-mitigation strategies through a variety of projects. These may include:

• Working with partners to improve climate governance and policies related to fast mitigation: For over a decade, IGSD has been spearheading national, regional, and international strategies to reduce SLCPs (black carbon, tropospheric ozone, methane, and f-gases such as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)).
• Assisting with preparation for and at international treaty meetings, including the Montreal Protocol and the UNFCCC.
• Advancing legal and scientific understanding of key climate issues: IGSD actively publishes law review and scientific articles, primers, and other background notes.

 This position is remote/hybrid with a strong preference for candidates who are in or who can relocate to Washington, DC, for in-person meetings with the team.

 IGSD is an equal-opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran, or disability status.

 About IGSD

IGSD is a 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to build resilience by accelerating fast climate mitigation actions to slow near-term warming and self-reinforcing climate feedbacks, avoid catastrophic climate and societal tipping points, and limit global temperature to 1.5°C—or at least keep this temperature guardrail in sight. These strategies include cutting climate “super pollutants” such as methane and protecting and enhancing carbon sinks. Fast mitigation strategies are essential to limiting warming and must complement long-term decarbonization and carbon-removal efforts.

IGSD’s fast mitigation strategy was originally laid out in the article for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Reducing abrupt climate change risk using the Montreal Protocol and other regulatory actions to complement cuts in CO₂ emissions (2009), authored by a team organized by Durwood Zaelke and Dr. Mario Molina. In May 2022, an IGSD-led team updated the Molina, et al. 2009 paper with another paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which concluded that adopting a “dual strategy” that simultaneously reduces emissions of both carbon dioxide and the other super climate pollutants would cut the rate of warming in half by 2050, making it much more likely to stay within safer limits.

Interested candidates are requested to send their CVs to Giselle Gonzalez at ggonzalez@igsd.org. Please include a cover letter and two writing samples as part of the application. Applications received by June 14, 2024, will be considered. The anticipated starting date is as soon as possible.