Utilizing Education and Field Experience to Mitigate Climate Change
Claudia Ortiz Montemayor F10
While serving as an assistant diplomat at the Permanent Mission of Mexico to the United Nations in New York Claudia Ortiz Montemayor, F10 recognized that she wanted to better understand the UN system and how multilateral relations work. She had studied international business and trade at Tecnológico de Monterrey in her Mexican hometown and felt a desire to expand her knowledge of international relations and climate change.
A leader in climate negotiations at the Mexican Mission encouraged Claudia to pursue a master’s degree in international affairs, which led her to apply to graduate schools and decide to attend Fletcher. She chose environmental policy and development economics as her fields of study, enrolling in Professor Kelly Sims Gallagher’s classes on energy policy and climate change and focusing her thesis on water and gas issues in Central Asia, specifically in Uzbekistan. “Kelly was my thesis advisor, and I think what is amazing about her is that she knew early on how significant climate change would become.”
During the summer of 2009, between academic years, Claudia interned at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Ankara, Turkey, leveraging her Fletcher connections to find accommodations through a fellow Fletcher graduate who became a friend. It was not the only significant relationship she made at Fletcher, as she also met her future husband, Scott Ohanesian!
After Fletcher, Claudia became active in the Climate Policy Lab alongside Professor Gallagher and spoke warmly about the importance of cultivating the Fletcher relationships she established. Claudia also worked as a consultant for the Center for Clean Air Policy, then became a climate change finance associate at the World Bank.
Since 2013, Claudia has worked for the United Nations Development Programme, stationed in Thailand and Panama before returning to New York, where she currently serves as a climate change strategies specialist. Her current role operates on a strategic level, building teams of colleagues within the UNDP to support countries in critical work such as preparing climate action targets and reports for the Paris Agreement, which require extensive and expensive to obtain climate data.
While she enjoys her work at UN headquarters and the stability it provides her family, Claudia considers the experiences she gained doing fieldwork invaluable. “When I was in the field, I was able to work in countries in Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia. You go into the communities, you see things with your own eyes, you design a project with locals who are affected by climate issues. The water aspect, the crop aspect, this is so crucial and life changing for people, and we can bring in the tools and financing that is needed to help.”