Rick Duke

Rick Duke is visiting research professor with the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. He is also affiliated with the Andlinger Center at Princeton and advises on climate strategy and policy through Gigaton Strategies. During the Biden Administration, he served as deputy to Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry. He drove strategy for US-China climate negotiations, culminating in the Sunnylands Statement that committed China to address non-CO2 climate superpollutants in its Paris Agreement emissions targets. He also launched the Global Methane Pledge, co-chaired the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, propelled a $10B renewables investment in Egypt, and drove work to end tropical deforestation through carbon markets and land restoration. From 2012 through 2016, he served as Special Assistant to President Obama, including setting the strategy that secured 5-year extensions to renewable energy tax credits in 2015, supporting the 2014 leader-level joint announcement of first-ever emission reduction targets with China, and leading White House efforts to secure the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol to phase down HFCs. During the first term, he served as deputy assistant secretary at the DOE. Previously, he launched the Center for Market Innovation at NRDC. At McKinsey, his projects included managing development of the firm’s first global greenhouse gas marginal abatement cost curves. He holds a PhD from Princeton University, where he focused on the economics of public investment in clean energy.