TOP STATE DEPARTMENT CLIMATE NEGOTIATOR HEADS TO DOE

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
1/25/13

One of the Obama Administration’s top climate negotiators stepped into a new role this week as the Department of Energy’s new deputy assistant secretary for Climate Change Policy and Technology. Jonathan Pershing began work Jan. 22 at Forrestal heading up the Office of Climate Change Policy and Technology, which is “the Department’s focal point for the analysis of policy and technology options to address global climate change,” according to DOE’s website. Pershing will now report to Assistant Secretary for Policy and International Affairs David Sandalow, who is also moonlighting as acting under secretary of Energy. “In his new role at DOE, Jonathan will help lead our work on domestic climate and clean energy policy, as well as help manage key international engagements on clean energy including the Clean Energy Ministerial,” Sandalow wrote in an e-mail to Office of Policy and International Affairs employees this week.

Over the last four years, Pershing worked as deputy special envoy for Climate Change at the State Department in the Administration’s No. 2 climate position. Along with Special Envoy Todd Stern, Pershing represented the United States during United Nations-led climate summits in locales like Copenhagen, Durban and Doha. Before heading to the Department of State, Pershing worked as director of the climate, energy and pollution program at the World Resources Institute and also chaired the environment program at the International Energy Agency. Sandalow called Pershing “one of our country’s leading thinkers and practitioners in the areas of climate change and clean energy policy” in his e-mail to employees. 

Pershing now fills a position at DOE that has been vacant since October, when Rick Duke stepped down to work at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. In his new role, Pershing will help develop and adopt greenhouse gas emissions-reducing technologies and policies at DOE; represent the agency in interagency and intergovernmental activities related to climate change and help push for efficiency and emissions standards through forums like the Clean Energy Ministerial, which also includes a carbon capture, utilization and storage ‘action group,’ according to DOE’s website.