Advance Climate Solutions brings senior experience from government, national NGOs, finance, engineering, and coalition leadership.
Our team has has helped shape investment tax credit design, carbon market mechanisms, federal procurement approaches, and coordinated demand-side initiatives for emerging climate solutions. We understand how to move complex files because we have worked inside the systems that govern them.
Selected experience includes:
Advising on the evolution of Canada’s industrial carbon pricing and contracts-for-difference mechanisms
Engaging in the design and implementation of the Clean Technology and CCUS Investment Tax Credits
Embedding carbon dioxide removal into Canada’s Greening Government Strategy
Delivering Canada’s first federal carbon removal procurement commitment
Designing and launching Canada’s first coordinated demand-side carbon removal coalition
Ed Whittingham
Principal & Founder
Ed Whittingham is a Canadian climate and energy leader with more than 25 years of experience across public policy, clean technology, corporate strategy, and the non-profit sector. He is the former Executive Director of the Pembina Institute and has worked with governments, companies, universities, and civil society organizations in Canada and internationally on complex climate and energy issues. Ed is also a widely published commentator and speaker, and hosts Energy vs Climate, a leading Canadian podcast on the energy transition. Today, his work focuses on helping build and scale climate solutions, particularly carbon dioxide removal, and he serves as Founding Director of the Advance Carbon Removal Coalition
ed@advanceclimate.ca
linkedin.com/in/ed-whittingham
Dave Hochhalter
Senior Associate
Dave Hochhalter is a multidisciplinary climate and sustainability professional with a background in Biosystems Engineering and 15 years of experience spanning finance, engineering, and strategic consulting. He brings hands-on technical and commercial project development experience across nature-based carbon removal pathways, with a practical focus on what makes projects financeable, scalable, and verifiable. At ACS, Dave works across the carbon removal value chain, bridging project development, buyer needs, and policy design. He serves as Coordinator of the Advance Carbon Removal Coalition, where he led the coalition’s design and launch to help catalyze a credible domestic carbon removal market.
dave@advanceclimate.ca
linkedin.com/in/davidhochhalter
Carlos Pena
Senior Associate
Carlos Pena is a climate policy operator with a proven record of advancing frontier climate solutions at the intersection of government decision-making, market development, and advocacy. He previously served as Senior Policy Advisor to the President of the Treasury Board of Canada, where he championed the integration of carbon dioxide removal into the Greening Government Strategy and helped launch Canada’s national carbon removal procurement program. Since joining ACS, he has supported coalition efforts to scale carbon removal, authored foundational policy materials for the sector, and played a central role in building practical alignment across government, NGOs, funders, and industry to move complex files forward.
carlos@advanceclimate.ca
linkedin.com/in/carlospenavallecillo
strategic platforms
ACS helps build and shape public-facing platforms that strengthen market confidence, inform decision-makers, and advance serious climate solutions.
Advance Carbon Removal Coalition
ACS helped design and launch the Advance Carbon Removal Coalition, a demand-side initiative bringing together companies, investors, financial institutions, and public partners to strengthen carbon removal markets in Canada.
Aimed at helping mobilize up to $100 million by 2030 for Canadian carbon removal projects, the coalition creates a coordinated signal around demand, credibility, and market readiness in a sector still taking shape.
Energy vs Climate Podcast
Energy vs Climate is a leading Canadian podcast and webinar platform hosted by Ed Whittingham, David Keith, and Sara Hastings-Simon, focused on serious discussion of the trade-offs shaping climate and energy policy.
Through conversations with leaders across industry, government, academia, and civil society, it has become a respected venue for rigorous, independent discussion of the forces shaping the energy transition.
