It is with both celebration and sorrow that we honor Rafe Pomerance, who passed on May 21, 2026. One of Global Choices’ most active advisors since 2019, he was brilliant and spunky, always bringing excellent insights and ideas to the table, and was one of the best environmental strategists in the climate space.
Rafe was the environmental movement’s hero in the ’70s and ’80s. As the President of Friends of the Earth (FoE), he led the movement to protect public lands, free-flowing rivers, clean air, and clean water, and early on raised the alarm about climate change. He served from 1986–1993 as a Senior Associate of the World Resources Institute, and in 1993 was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State by President Clinton.
Rafe was a key architect of the Kyoto Protocol, the first international effort to reduce heat-trapping emissions, and one of the U.S. negotiators on the Paris Agreement. He co-founded and chaired American Rivers and served as chair of the League of Conservation Voters. A distinguished Senior Arctic Policy Fellow at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, he also served as a board member of the Polar Research Board of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. In 2014, he launched Arctic 21, a coalition of organizations communicating about the unraveling of the Arctic. He also recently started Upper Limit of Sea Level Rise, a coalition of organizations of which Global Choices is a member, to determine a second metric for curbing climate change alongside the 1.5–2.0°C limit for global temperature rise.
Beyond his pioneering and stellar accomplishments, Rafe was a remarkable mentor — kind and inclusive, with a dry sense of humor that could catch you off guard. He was deeply thoughtful and always offered valuable perspectives. Rafe will be greatly missed, but his work is legendary, and its benefits will endure and serve all of us for a long time to come.
