Wolfson S&C Stories

Karen Alvarenga de Oliveira
Advancing Policy and Leading Change

Karen first learned of Cambridge University watching a TV programme, in Brazil, at 12 years old.

Years later, Karen arrived at Wolfson from Brazil having been accepted for a Masters and Ph.D degrees at the Department of Land Economy, fully funded by the Brazilian government. Her MPhil dissertation "Environmental tax reform: A myth or a solution for environmental quality and employment?" concluded that environmental taxes - if compared to voluntary agreements, emission trading and regulations - would further motivate legal entities to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Karen completed her PhD with a thesis on "Climate change and distributive justice", extending Rawls’ and Dworkin’s principles of distributive justice and Sen’s capability approach into the climate change negotiations and proposing three guiding principles to future commitment negotiations for Convention Parties. Karen's approach uses the Human Development Index and a countries’ carbon dioxide emission per capita to define a Party’s different commitments. These studies allowed Karen to better understand economics and combine this with her legal expertise.

Whilst studying at Wolfson, Karen was given the opportunity to be an intern at the United Nations Framework for Climate Change Congregation (UNFCCC) Secretariat, based in Bonn, Germany, for a few months.  During this time, Karen was involved with research and writing a draft technical paper and proposal on enabling environments for the transferring of environmentally sound technology from developed to developing countries. The draft analysed World Trade Organization (WTO) rules on intellectual property rights and subsidies that could assist in promoting technology transfer and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. It also examined the obstacles and opportunities for synergies between the Climate Change legislation and WTO rules.

From being an intern at UNFCCC, enabled through Wolfson, Karen gained a fuller understanding of international relations and the intricacies of the UN negotiation dynamics, together with a better understanding of various countries’ positions and climate legislation worldwide. The outcomes of this valuable post for Karen were:

Opportunities to see climate change and biodiversity as combined solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build climate resilience; and:

The importance of awareness raising, knowledge sharing and dialogue with local communities, to foster their participation in identifying solutions that fulfil their needs.

Her role in Bonn was crucial to enable Karen to write a thesis that explored ways for developing countries to better negotiate their climate position, defending their mitigation and adaptation needs.

After finishing her studies at Wolfson in 2003, Karen then returned to Brazil to work in different roles in the public and private sectors, including the Minas Gerais’ Environmental Protection Agency, as a partner in law firms and as a legal general manager translating international policies and regulations into strategies and actions to improve their sustainability aims.

She founded a team, led and delivered a project to carry out an economic valuation of the ecosystem services provided by Belo Horizonte city's Botanical Garden, assessing their contribution to the well-being of the city's inhabitants. 

Currently Head of Regulatory Affairs and Global Strategy for Givaudan, Karen is now responsible for developing strategies for their fragrance division to manage a variety of emerging global, regional and national issues regarding environment, biodiversity, biotechnology and chemicals.

Karen has previously based her research interests on Brazil's payment for environmental services, authoring a chapter on Brazil’s perspective to Climate Change for the 2016 Oxford Handbook of International Climate Change Law. Furthermore, Karen has presented at COP13 on the Convention of Biodiversity, as well as presented her project of Valuing Ecosystem Services of Serra da Moeda in Brazil. As a student, Karen helped Cambridge University better engage with the United Nations’ different Conference of the Parties (COP) both on biodiversity and climate change.

Karen strongly believes that climate change is a global threat and needs to be addressed, and would like to continue to play an active part to help. When asked if there was just one switch she could flick to make a difference, without any hesitation, responded we should cut all subsidies on fossil fuels around the world.

One of Karen’s fondest Wolfson memories is playing in the Wolfson Women’s Cricket team and training on Cambridge's beautiful lawns.  The Wolfson team at the time was made up of students from West Indies, England, Europe and Latin America!

^{Updated: July 2021}