International Advisory Committee – Luis Gilberto Murillo-Urrutia is the Colombian Ambassador to the United States. A well-known national political figure in Colombia, Murillo-Urrutia ran as a presidential candidate in 2022, later joining the ticket of Sergio Fajardo as vice presidential candidate. He has more than 30 years of experience in public policy design, implementation, and advocacy, particularly in the areas of sustainable regional development, environmental protection, social inclusion, and peace building. He has served in key positions in the public sector. He was elected governor of the predominantly Afro-Colombian state of Chocó, and under President Santos’ administration, he served as Presidential Advisor and Director for the Todos Somos PAZcifico Development Plan and later served as Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development. As Minister, Murillo-Urrutia, within the framework of the implementation of the historic 2016 peace accord, tripled the size of Colombia’s naturally protected area as a key measure to fight deforestation and to protect biodiversity. He was a central figure in leading the formulation and implementation of Colombia’s national climate change policy framework under the Paris Agreement, Colombia’s national climate change management law, Colombia’s national carbon tax, and Colombia’s voluntary carbon market.

Mr. Murillo-Urrutia is a mining engineer with a Master’s of Science in Engineering. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Latino and Latin American Studies (CLALS) at American University in Washington, D.C. and is a Senior Evaluation Consultant on natural resources management, equity, and inclusion for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Currently, Murillo-Urrutia is a Martin Luther King Jr. Fellow at the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative, advising and leading policy research on climate change, nature solutions, and environmental justice.