Canning House Research Forum

Latin American Trade in the Age of Climate Change:

Impact, Opportunities, and policy options

Read the full report

Hosted by Canning House and the LSE Latin America and Caribbean Centre

Canning House and the LSE Latin America and Caribbean Centre (LACC) have partnered in the establishment of the Canning House Research Forum hosted at the LSE. The Forum is a five-year rolling programme of research and policy engagement. The overarching theme is, “The Future of Latin America and the Caribbean”, with a focus on the United Kingdom-Latin America relations.

Canning House and LACC joint expertise will see the production of a series of individual, policy-focused research projects aiming to advance knowledge and offer insights of practical application to political, economic, social, and business policy-making.

Dr Amir Lebdioui is the first LSE - Canning House Fellow under this programme, and he will present the results of the initial research cycle during this event. After the 2000s commodity boom in which inequality had fallen in Latin America, inequality had risen once more, motivating waves of protests across the region. Maintaining the status quo is not sustainable and may further hinder political and economic stability in the region.

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In his report, Dr Amir Lebdioui, discusses how the region can cope with the long-term trade effects of climate change as well as exploit the potential trade opportunities that arise from the global decarbonisation agenda.

This event aims to discuss the report's findings and policy recommendations, the pathways for regional cooperation around green transformation and industrial policy, and the suitability of a Latin American Green Deal to support the transition to sustainable, competitive, and inclusive economies in the region.

Meet our panel

This event's key speaker is Amir Lebdioui. Amir Lebdioui is the Canning House Research Fellow based at LACC. His research lies at the crossroads between industrial policy, natural resource management and the sustainable development agenda. As a result, his research has focused on the political economy of resource-based development, export diversification strategies, and green industrial policy in the context of renewable energy development and climate change. In addition to preparing a number of journal articles, Amir is also working on developing a new indicator of extractive-based development. He also regularly provides analysis for multilateral development organizations. He holds a PhD in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge.

This event will be co-chaired by Gareth Jones who is Director of the Latin America and Caribbean Centre at LSE. He is also Professor of Urban Geography in the Department of Geography and Environment at LSE and an Associate Member of the International Inequalities Institute. He has an interdisciplinary academic background having studied economics, geography and urban sociology, and holds an undergraduate degree from University College London and a doctorate from University of Cambridge. 

The second co-chair will be Cristina Cortes. Cristina Cortes is an Oxford and LSE politics and economics graduate. She has worked in government, banking and energy across a variety of commercial, business development and government relations roles in London, Houston, Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina and Brazil. Cristina joined Canning House in 2015, taking over as CEO in 2018.

 

Read more on our discussants

Nicolás Grau Veloso, Minister of Economy, Development and, Tourism of Chile. He was assistant Professor of Economics at the School of Economics and Business at the University of Chile and is also a researcher at the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (COES). He obtained his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2014, and his research has focused on the Economics of Crime and Education.

Andres Valenciano Yamuni, Minister of Foreign Trade of Costa Rica. He has over 15 years of professional experience. He is an Industrial Engineer graduated from the University of Costa Rica, with a Master degree in International Business from The Fletcher School - Tufts University in the United States of America, and he’s a Lee Kuan Yew School Senior Fellow from the National University of Singapore. Before becoming Minister, he was the Executive President of the Instituto Nacional de Aprendizaje, where he was in charge of technical and vocational education in the country.

Jeannette Sánchez has been Director of the Natural Resources Division of ECLAC in Santiago since 2017. She holds a PhD in Public Policies and Social Transformations (cum laude) from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), and has also completed Doctoral studies in Development at the Catholic University of Louvain-La Neuve (UCL), a Masters in Community and Regional Planning (M.Sc.) from the University of Texas, and a Masters in Economics from FLACSO-Ecuador and Economist from the Catholic University of Ecuador.