CCAP Announces New Hires & Staff Promotions

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Center for Clean Air Policy is pleased to announce the hiring of Greg Barlow (Communications Officer) and Ishfaq Khan Malik (Climate Finance Policy Intern). Additionally, CCAP promoted Brooks Shaffer to Methane Mitigation Program Manager and welcomes back Adriana Bazan, who serves as the Senior Climate Finance Policy Associate.

“It’s exciting to see CCAP’s continued growth and development, and I’m thrilled to welcome two new outstanding individuals to our team, while also sustaining important continuity at our core,” said Executive Director Allison Bender-Corbett. “I’m happy to recognize Adriana and Brooks’ exemplary service to our organization and our partners. I look forward to the contributions that all of these tremendous professionals bring as we continue to pursue and implement innovative climate policy solutions around the world.”

Brooks Shaffer | Methane Mitigation Program Manager

Brooks has over 10 years of experience working at the intersection of international development, climate finance and environmental policy. A skilled economic and policy analyst with a strong background in energy and business, he contributes to CCAP’s international waste, energy and climate finance programs. Brooks helps manage CCAP’s work on Latin American programs and projects, including work in Peru, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador. He currently focuses on on-the-ground work to design and implement National Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) that actively help countries to achieve their goals and pledges under the Paris Agreement. As a consultant, Brooks has helped numerous countries formulate robust proposals and successfully apply them to climate finance. His contributions have led to the securing of millions in funding for low-carbon development.

Brooks’ success in formulating proposals is based on his decade of experience in policy and project development, with expertise in the creation of enabling frameworks to attract private sector low-carbon investments, the pursuit of legislative incentives and policy reform, innovative financial mechanism design, emissions reductions modeling, and the development of pre-feasibility studies for waste and renewable energy projects. He understands the importance of sharing best practices and replicating successes. Brooks led the CCAC’s South American City Waste network by organizing multi-stakeholder dialogues and events to promote the development of sustainable waste projects that reduce methane and promote green jobs. He is bilingual in English and Spanish.

Adriana Bazan | Senior Climate Finance Policy Associate

Adriana is a climate finance specialist with 8+ years of international experience in developing countries and emerging markets. Her policy fields include climate finance, climate-related financial risks, green taxonomy, green recovery, climate change policy, SDG financing, blended finance, carbon pricing, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) and local governments.

She is a Senior Climate Finance Associate at CCAP where she provides technical advisory services for the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to support countries by producing high-quality and relevant analysis on the finance mapping of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC). Her work helps countries to identify gaps and barriers for developing a strategic national vision of climate finance. She has also aided in developing a list of recommendations for the governments of Chile, Uzbekistan and Ghana, showing them how to incorporate climate physical and transition risks into the local banking sector. In Nicaragua, she helped the NDA to map over 50 key private sector actors that could potentially leverage and implement climate finance.

As a Climate Finance Specialist for United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Adriana had the opportunity to overview the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) Green Recovery platform, and the Green Economic Models (GEM) for Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Grenada, and Argentina. She also helped to create the LAC Working Group on Sustainable Finance Taxonomies, and a series of GCF readiness projects to strengthen the role of financial regulators to align financial flows with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

As a Deputy Director of External Credit for the Mexican Federal Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) she aided to structure and innovate public financial mechanisms, such as the National Fund for Climate Change. She also negotiated $42 million in grants from international organizations for environmental projects and acted as advisor to the environmental public sector for the presentation of proposals of sound environmental projects for international banks and green funds—such as the GCF and GEF.

Adriana has experience in the Joint SDG Fund of the UN, the Environment Directorate of the OECD, the Mexican Federal Ministry of Economy, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) and the local government of her home State. She speaks fluently in Spanish, English and Portuguese and works well in French. Adriana is a Fulbright scholar and holds a master degree in Public Policy from the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. She also has a master’s degree in Economic Development and a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations, both from the Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP).

Greg Barlow | Communications Officer

Greg oversees the implementation and strategy for all CCAP communications and brings a strong public relations background to CCAP, having spent the majority of his career promoting non-profit organizations and higher education institutions. He previously ran the communications office for the Law & Society Association (LSA), where he built its PR infrastructure from the ground up. During his time at LSA, he oversaw the organization's rebranding initiative, including the development of a new website for the organization. LSA achieved a record number of members and substantial growth across its social media platforms in each of his three years spent with the association.

Prior to that, Greg promoted college athletics in various media relations roles. He had stops at the American Athletic Conference and the College of the Holy Cross. Greg was also a writer for several newspapers, including the Stonebridge Press and Worcester Telegram covering both news and sports.

A native of Whitinsville, Mass., Greg earned his bachelor’s degree from Colby-Sawyer College and his master’s in communication with a concentration in public relations from Lasell University. Greg also enrolled in the Green Infrastructure Planning and Climate Change graduate certificate program at UMass-Amherst and regularly volunteers for the Kestrel Land Trust.

Ishfaq Khan Malik | Climate Finance Policy Intern

Ishfaq provides comprehensive research, analysis, report-writing and conference-preparation support for CCAP’s projects related to climate finance, including capacity building in developing countries.

With over 10 years of policymaking experience in Pakistan’s Ministry of Finance, Ishfaq has collaborated with the World Bank and Asian Development Bank on various policy reform programs in taxation, fiscal & debt management, trade & competitiveness, financial inclusion, human capital development, women’s economic productivity, capital markets development and the energy sector. He has also worked with international legal firms, credit rating agencies and financial advisers in the execution of capital market transactions. Moreover, Ishfaq has worked with the United Nations Development Programme on Climate Change Financing Framework and Climate Public Expenditures, as well as the Institutional Review for Pakistan.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Engineering & Technology, Peshawar, Pakistan. Currently, as a Joint Japan/World Bank Scholar, he is working towards his Master of Public Administration degree at Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs. Ishfaq specializes in International Finance & Economic Policy with Data Analysis & Quantitative Analysis.

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CCAP helps policy makers around the world develop, promote, and implement innovative, market-based solutions to major climate, air quality and energy problems that balance both environmental and economic interests.

Core work areas include climate finance, developing country capacity building and facilitative dialogue, carbon markets, and the development of national climate strategies, sectoral mitigation programs, and climate finance proposals.