Ms. Karen Olsen (PhD) is a senior advisor in the Impact Assessment and Adaptation Analysis section at the UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre.
She has 15 years of work experience with climate and sustainable development in developing countries. Currently she leads the ‘Sustainable Development Initiative on Implementation of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement under the UNFCCC’ jointly with the Gold Standard focusing on technical analysis and policy dialogue for negotiators to operationalize the ‘rulebook’ for new market mechanisms in the Paris Agreement.
She is technical lead for the Initiative for Climate Action Transparency (ICAT) Transformational Change Methodology and co-lead for the ICAT Sustainable Development Methodology both developed jointly with the World Resources Institute. She was the lead consultant to develop the CDM SD tool for the UNFCCC Secretariat approved by the Executive Board in November 2012.
She is supervisor for PhD and Master students and has written several peer-reviewed articles on sustainability transition, Article 6 cooperative approaches, capacity development and the CDM’s contribution to sustainable development.
She holds a PhD in International Development Studies (2007) from Roskilde University, Denmark, a Master’s degree in Political Science and a Bachelors’ degree in Geography from University of Copenhagen.
Karen Holm Olsen
Senior Advisor - Carbon Market Coordinator