Todd Stern
Nonresident Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Energy Security and Climate Initiative
Todd Stern is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution concentrating on climate change. Stern served from January 2009 until April 2016, as the special envoy for climate change at the Department of State. He was President Obama’s chief climate negotiator, leading the U.S. effort in negotiating the Paris Agreement and in all bilateral and multilateral climate negotiations in the seven years leading up to Paris. Stern also participated in the development of U.S. domestic climate and clean energy policy.
Stern is currently focused on writing about the climate negotiations during his time as special envoy as well as on writing, speaking, and advising about ongoing efforts on climate change at both the international and domestic levels.
Stern served under President Clinton in the White House from 1993 to 1999, mostly as assistant to the president and staff secretary. From 1997 to 1999, he coordinated the administration’s initiative on global climate change, acting as the senior White House negotiator at the Kyoto and Buenos Aires negotiations. From 1999 to 2001, Stern served as counselor to Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers, advising the secretary on the policy and politics of a broad range of economic and financial issues, and supervising Treasury’s anti-money laundering strategy.
From 2001 to 2008, Stern was a partner at the law firm WilmerHale, where he served as vice chair of the public policy and strategy group. He was also a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress from 2004 to 2008, where he focused on climate change.
In the fall of 2016, Stern was a visiting lecturer in law at Yale Law School, teaching a course on the development of the international climate regime. He lectured in 2017 at both Yale and Brown Universities. He has written for various publications, including The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The American Interest, and The Washington Quarterly. He has also appeared on CNN, BBC, MSNBC, and NPR, among others.
Stern graduated from Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Affiliations:
Council on Foreign Relations, member
Todd Stern is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution concentrating on climate change. Stern served from January 2009 until April 2016, as the special envoy for climate change at the Department of State. He was President Obama’s chief climate negotiator, leading the U.S. effort in negotiating the Paris Agreement and in all bilateral and multilateral climate negotiations in the seven years leading up to Paris. Stern also participated in the development of U.S. domestic climate and clean energy policy.
Stern is currently focused on writing about the climate negotiations during his time as special envoy as well as on writing, speaking, and advising about ongoing efforts on climate change at both the international and domestic levels.
Stern served under President Clinton in the White House from 1993 to 1999, mostly as assistant to the president and staff secretary. From 1997 to 1999, he coordinated the administration’s initiative on global climate change, acting as the senior White House negotiator at the Kyoto and Buenos Aires negotiations. From 1999 to 2001, Stern served as counselor to Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers, advising the secretary on the policy and politics of a broad range of economic and financial issues, and supervising Treasury’s anti-money laundering strategy.
From 2001 to 2008, Stern was a partner at the law firm WilmerHale, where he served as vice chair of the public policy and strategy group. He was also a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress from 2004 to 2008, where he focused on climate change.
In the fall of 2016, Stern was a visiting lecturer in law at Yale Law School, teaching a course on the development of the international climate regime. He lectured in 2017 at both Yale and Brown Universities. He has written for various publications, including The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The American Interest, and The Washington Quarterly. He has also appeared on CNN, BBC, MSNBC, and NPR, among others.
Stern graduated from Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Affiliations:
Council on Foreign Relations, member
[On setting ambitious Paris Agreement goals as an example for other countries] You never have impact unless you're walking the walk, not just talking the talk. The U.S. is going to have to produce a really ramped up NDC [nationally determined contribution] target for 2030.
[On replicating EU Green Deal programs globally] That's got to happen in the U.S., that's got to happen in China, that's got to happen in India, and Paris can provide some push but the Paris Agreement can't force countries to do that. [On a joint EU-U.S. carbon trade bubble] It will be enormously important for the EU and the U.S. to get synced up.
On November 11, Todd Stern discussed prospects for international diplomatic efforts on climate change amid the political isolationism of the COVID-19 era at the Financial Times’s Global Boardroom conference.
[On the impact of the U.S. adopting a clear stance on climate change internationally] It is the US driving the world in this direction that will be most important. If you have got the US, the EU, China working together you can expand to the whole world. It is not just about the US’s domestic emissions, but the US position as a world leader.
[On the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement] If Biden wins, then the fact that the withdrawal became final on November 4 really won’t matter. If Trump wins a second term, then it will have much more lasting impact.
[On the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement] The international community has seen the United States walk away twice.
Climate change is upon us with a vengeance and to contain it we need nothing less than to decarbonize the global economy in just three decades, starting now, and to deploy nature-based solutions in forestry and land use that can both reduce carbon emissions and absorb them naturally. We can do what’s required, but only if political will is mobilized at every level, from government leaders to business, civil society and ordinary citizens.
[On U.S. retrenchment from climate action] China, the EU and other leaders are going to be putting their minds to, 'OK, we have to live in a world without America. Maybe someday [they will] be back, but we really can’t wait.
[On a diplomatic push on climate action] [The US is] going to have to be moving right out of the box with a whole range of national actions. The US is going to have to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.