Raymond Clémençon teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Global and International Studies Program the Sociology Department and the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Environment and Development an interdisciplinary and international journal established in 1992.

His policy research interests and teaching cover sustainable development, political economy, international environmental institutions, agreements and negotiations, international organizations, development financing, and comparative environmental politics in Europe and the US.

Prior to joining UCSB in the fall of 2008, Raymond Clémençon taught at the University of California in San Diego at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IRPS), the Environmental Studies Program and the Political Science Department. He has worked on international environmental policy issues since 1989 first as a government representative and later researcher and policy consultant. Until 1994, he was Section Head at the International Affairs Division of the Swiss Environment Agency. From 1990 to 1994, Clémençon was one of the negotiators on the Climate Convention, the Rio Conference on Environment and Development, and the establishment of the Global Environment Facility, GEF, a multilateral environmental financing mechanism associated with the World Bank, UNDP and UNEP. In the early 90s he was involved in Switzerland's national effort to develop and implement a CO2 tax and a national sustainable development strategy.

Raymond Clémençon has served as a policy consultant for the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in Washington DC, the World Bank, the "International Task Force on Global Public Goods," and the Swiss government. He was a member of the evaluation team conducting the Second Perform ance Assessment of the GEF in 1997. More recently he advised the GEF secretariat during the 5th GEF replenishment negotiations in 2009 and the Swiss government on the establishment of the Green Climate Fund, in 2011 - 2012. The GCF is expected to serve the UN Climate Convention as the main financing mechanism for mitigation and adaptation measures to be undertaken by developing countries.