Jim Whitestone
Chief Environmental and Financial Economist

Sectors: Climate change and environment, energy, agriculture, natural resources/forestry, transportation and infrastructure
Experience: Leadership, strategy, policy, program and project development and delivery

Jim is the former Assistant Deputy Minister of the Climate Change and Environmental Policy Division with the Ontario Government. In that role, he led the development and implementation of a range of climate change related policies and programs including Ontario’s cap and trade program with California and Quebec and the Ontario Green Bank to finance the deployment of low carbon technologies. Jim also led Ontario’s participation with the Canadian delegation at UN COP 13 Climate Change Conference in Bali and worked on developing carbon offsets to help finance reforestation in the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve in Mexico.

Jim is a member of the Professional LLM in Energy and Infrastructure Law program at Osgoode Hall Law where he lecturers on climate change, a lecturer at the University of Toronto on environmental policy (School of the Environment), energy policy (Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering) and climate policy (Munk School of Public Policy and Global Affairs). He was recently an expert panel member on the review of Canada’s carbon pricing system led by the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices. He was also a member of the consultative group for the Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets supported by the Institute for International Finance and the Canada lead for the Climate Chain Coalition.

Jim completed his Master’s Degree at Michigan State University and a Bachelor’s Degree at the University of Guelph in Agricultural and Resource Economics. He has a Certificate of Business from the University of Toronto and a Sustainable Investment Professional Certificate from Concordia University.