Speakers
Mr. William A. Nitze
Chairman, Climate Institute; and Chairman, GridPoint
William A. Nitze has been working on energy and environmental issues for most of his career and currently serves as Chairman of two companies developing clean energy technologies: GridPoint, Inc., which designs, manufactures, and markets intelligent energy management systems, and Oceana Energy Company, which is developing an innovative technology for converting tidal energy into electricity. He also serves as Chairman of the Climate Institute, as well as the Galapagos Conservancy.
Mr. Nitze was President of the Gemstar Group, Inc., a nonprofit corporation that developed market-based approaches to global environmental problems, from 2001 to 2005. Prior to founding Gemstar, Mr. Nitze served as Assistant Administrator for International Activities at the Environmental Protection Agency (1994-2001), where he made environmental security a focus of the Agency’s international work, establishing a formal working relationship among the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and the EPA on environmental security issues.
As President of the Alliance to Save Energy (1990-1994), Mr. Nitze led a broad coalition of business, government, labor, and consumer interests in supporting and implementing policies and programs to promote energy efficiency including energy efficient building codes, efficiency standards for appliances, and efficiency incentives in mortgages and commercial leases. As Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Environment in the Reagan and Bush administrations (1987-1990), Mr. Nitze was the principal working level negotiator on multilateral environmental issues ranging from trade in endangered species to climate change. In 1988, Mr. Nitze played a key role in creating and organizing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
After leaving the State Department in early 1990, Mr. Nitze was a Visiting Scholar at the Environmental Law Institute, where he wrote a monograph entitled The Greenhouse Effect: Formulating a Convention. Many of the elements discussed in this monograph were subsequently incorporated into the Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed in 1992. Prior to entering the public policy arena, Mr. Nitze spent fourteen years at the Mobil Oil Corporation (1974-1987), where he served as Assistant General Counsel, Exploration & Producing Division, and General Counsel, Mobil Japan. Mr. Nitze holds B.A. degrees from Harvard College and Wadham College, Oxford, and a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School.
