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China

Craig Hart is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center and Executive Director of the Pace Energy and Climate Center at Pace University’s Haub School of Law. Hart is also a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University’s Energy Policy & Climate program.

Hart has worked with governments and projects in the Americas, Asia, the Middle East and Africa on renewables, energy efficiency, grid modernization and microgrids, and low carbon technologies for the fossil-fuel power generation sector. In the utility reform area, Hart advised Uzbekistan in its ongoing energy market and utility reform initiative leading to the restructuring of the state energy company Uzbekneftegaz, and advised the country of Georgia’s Ministry of Energy in reforming its state electricity transmission company.

Hart serves on the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ Committee on Sustainability and its Council on Standards and Certification, which establishes and maintains ASME safety and performance standards, and monitors their implementation globally. Additionally, he is a member of the International Standards Organization’s U.S. Technical Advisory Committees TC-265 for carbon sequestration technologies, TC-298 for rare earth elements, and TC-333 for lithium. Hart is currently writing a paper on China’s rare earth elements.

Hart’s academic research concentrates on energy transition and decarbonization in the context of economic development and firm competitiveness. His work includes extensive focus on China, having lived and worked in China for almost a decade, teaching at Tsinghua University and Renmin (People’s) University of China, and consulting to intergovernmental organizations. He writes regularly on China’s energy transition, including Mapping China’s Climate & Energy Policies.

Prior to academia, Hart practiced law in the energy infrastructure project finance, capital markets, and carbon management fields, representing project developers, lenders, and investors focusing on energy infrastructure, clean energy, and high-technology. His practice included practicing with the international law firms White & Case and O’Melveny & Myers, and serving as counsel to the Asia Development Bank’s Future Carbon Fund, a $115 million fund to finance renewables and carbon reduction projects under the Clean Development Mechanism in Asia and the Pacific.

Hart earned a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology researching decarbonization paths with the aim of preventing dangerous climate change, a bachelor’s and law degree from the University of California at Berkeley, and a master’s in economics from New York University.