2017 GCF Task Force Everyday Hero Award Presented to California Air Resource Board’s Jason Gray
Governors’ Climate & Forests Task Force Annual Meeting | September 28, 2017 Balikpapan, East Kalimantan Indonesia
This year the GCF presented the Everyday Hero award to Jason Gray from the California Air Resources Board. It is awarded to a civil servant from one of the GCF member states and provinces who embodies the values, the commitment, and the dedication to service that is at the heart of the GCF – someone who works hard every day inside the government – across different political administrations – to advance the agenda of protecting forests and climate and enhancing livelihoods. Any real and lasting solution to climate change, any effective approach to low emissions development, will have to involve thousands – tens of thousands – of hard working civil servants in state and provincial governments all around the world. These civil servants rarely if ever get the recognition that they deserve. But they are on the front lines, together with their civil society partners, and much of the solution to climate change goes through them. There are so many of these everyday heroes working in GCF states and provinces.
Jason has worked at the Air Resources Board for more than seven years and is currently the Chief of its Climate Change Program Evaluation Branch. In his work at the Air Resources Board, Jason manages a team of almost 40 people and has been deeply involved in the design, implementation, and oversight of the California cap-and-trade program – one of the most sophisticated and well-run carbon markets in the world. Like previous award recipients Elaine Corsini (Mato Grosso, Brazil) and Pak Husaini (Aceh, Indonesia), Jason is a quiet leader – an everyday hero doing the hard, day-to-day work that is so important to keeping his agency and the GCF moving forward on climate and forests. He stands for hope and action in a world that needs so much of both.
