The Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture and the Yale Emerging Climate Leaders Fellowship invite you to a joint panel discussion on the opportunities and challenges of scaling carbon dioxide removal across countries of the geopolitical South. Drawing on their experience from direct air capture deployment, forest restoration, enhanced weathering, and carbon market development pacross Latin America and Asia, panelists will discuss how to deploy these mechanisms at scale while avoiding extractive models, building local capacity, and ensuring projects genuinely serve communities and ecosystems in the affected regions.

This event is part of the Yale International Leadership Center's Climate Week, which brings 16 Climate Fellows to campus to convene as leaders driving climate policy, finance, and technological innovation in their countries.

Panelists: 

Thais Ferraz (Brazil, 2026 Yale Climate Fellow) is Program Director at the Institute for Climate and Society in Brazil, where she oversees support for 200 Brazilian civil society organizations working on climate change. With a background spanning the private and philanthropic sectors, she specializes in bioeconomy and sustainable agriculture.

Trishna Nagrani (Panama, 2026 Yale Climate Fellow) leads Asian expansion for Climeworks, the world's leading carbon removal company. Previously a Schwarzman Scholar at Tsinghua University, she has researched green bond markets across the US, China, and EU, and invested in emerging market digital infrastructure at the World Bank Group.

Noah Planavsky (Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences) is an isotope geochemist that works on environmental change in Earth’s past, present, and future. His work combines field studies, analytical chemistry, novel isotope systems, and geochemical modeling. He has worked extensively on atmospheric evolution - particularly on changes in oxygen and carbon dioxide concentrations.

Andhyta Firselly Utami (Afu) (Indonesia, 2026 Yale Climate Fellow) is Chief Experiment Officer of Think Policy, an Indonesia-based advisory improving the policy ecosystem for just climate transitions. A former environmental economist at the World Bank and Climate Program Lead at World Resources Institute Indonesia, she currently supports Indonesia's Ministry of Environment on NDC governance and Jakarta's climate action capacity.

Moderator: 

Toby Bryce is Managing Director for the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture. Prior to Yale, he was engaged broadly across the natural carbon capture field as an advisor to companies and organizations on policy, market development, and the responsible commercialization and deployment of high-integrity carbon dioxide removal. Outside of Yale, Toby serves as an Advisor to the Carbon Business Council and Principal of 12.01.