Titles

• Research Director, Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Service, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory

Biography

Graham Erion, Esq., is the Research Director at the Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Service at ASU and Vice President of M&A and Structured Finance at CarbonFree Technology in Toronto Canada. While at CarbonFree, Graham has overseen the acquisition, development, and financing of a >350 MWp portfolio of over 50 separate solar PV projects in Chile. He also led the closing of a >$270M USD US private placement for the Chile portfolio.

Prior to his work in-house in the solar industry, Graham practiced at the leading global law firms of Torys LLP and DLA Piper. While in private practice, he worked on a variety of debt and equity transactions for public and private companies totaling over $1 billion in transaction valuations. He also regularly provided corporate governance and regulatory advice over matters of fiduciary duties, ESG compliance, human rights, and anti-corruption.

Graham was also part of the plaintiff's counsel in the historic Aguinda v. Chevron litigation in Ecuador, which resulted in a > $9.5 billion judgment against the oil major for unprecedented oil pollution in the Ecuadorian amazon.  Graham worked in Quito with the Ecuadorian legal team as well as enforcement counsel in Canada and helped raise litigation finance to fund the ongoing efforts to force Chevron to pay the judgment.

In addition to his professional work, Graham regularly provides analysis and updates for ClimateLaw.org, a Friends of the Earth International Climate Justice Project. He also advises Canadian Youth Climate Coalition (where he was a founding member), Sierra Club of Canada and the South African Durban Group for Climate Justice on climate change policy and developments in the carbon market. He served as a director of Islands First, a leading climate change advocacy organization with the United Nations from 2008 to 2013. Until its windup in May 2008, Graham was the co-chair of Sierra Club’s Bi-National Climate Change Committee for the United States and Canada. In 2005, Graham was appointed as the official member of the United Nations’ Montreal Climate Conference Youth Delegation. He has worked on climate and energy issues with representatives of all levels of government and his opinions have appeared in numerous publications including The Toronto Star, NOW magazine, and Adbusters.

Graham also has extensive international volunteer experience, including two summers volunteering in South Africa. He interned at the Legal Resources Centre in Cape Town, where he helped manage environmental aspects of settlement negotiations in the Richterveld case, South Africa’s largest-ever land claims case, which helped lead to a framework agreement. He was also a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. While there, Graham conducted his Masters research on the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism projects in South Africa, which was the first in-depth analysis of the country’s carbon market. Graham published his research in an edited volume on South African climate issues titled Climate Change, Carbon Trading, and Civil Society (2008: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press and Rozenburg Press), which is currently in its third edition. During his time in South Africa, Graham worked closely with community-based organizations across the country, training local activists in climate change policy engagement and mitigation strategies.

Graham holds a Master of Laws from Columbia University in New York (2011), where he was awarded the prestigious Kent Scholarship (top 3% of graduating class); a Masters of Environmental Studies from York University in Toronto (2007), where he was awarded the Vari scholarship as top student; a law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School, and an Honours Bachelors of Arts in Political Science from the University of Victoria in British Columbia. He has formal training as a sous chef and is a certified sommelier.

Education

• LLM, Law, Columbia University School of Law, 2011
• BL, Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, 2007
• MES, Environmental Studies, York University, 2007
• BA (honours with distinction), Political Science, University of Victoria, 2002

External Links

• Website