Joëlle Chassard manages the World Bank's carbon finance business, a portfolio of 10 carbon funds and facilities with participations from 16 governments and 65 companies totalling $2.1 billion.  The funds purchase carbon credits from projects in the Bank's client countries, under the flexible mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol---- the Clean Development Mechanism in developing countries and Joint Implementation in countries with economies in transition.  Close to 100 emission reductions purchase agreements have been signed, representing 200 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. 

Joëlle is overseeing the establishment of two new carbon facilities that will respectively scale up carbon finance as a means to facilitate the transition to a low-carbon economy in the Bank's client countries (the Carbon Partnership Facility; anticipated starting size: $500 million) and test approaches to address the issue of carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility; anticipated size: $300 million).  Both facilities will include a carbon fund to purchase credits and a program preparation fund to assist in the development of carbon assets. 

Joëlle has been with the World Bank since 1980, and has held various positions in several regional vice-presidencies of the Bank.  A financial analyst by training, she spent the early part of her career at the Bank working on projects in the energy and infrastructure sectors in Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia.  She was deputy to the Country Director for India from 1997 to 2003 and manager in the Corporate Strategy Group of the Bank until 2006.  Joëlle was appointed to her current position in May 2006.