Worldwatch Institute Staff

Biography

Michael Renner, Senior Researcher & Director, Global Security Project

Email: mrenner@worldwatch.org
Phone: (631) 369-6896

Michael Renner is a Senior Researcher at the Worldwatch Institute and Director of the Institute's Global Security Project. His main research areas are peace and security, resources and conflict, post-disaster peacemaking, and jobs and the environment. Michael is currently coordinating a research project on "Green Jobs: Towards Sustainable Work in a Low-Carbon World" as part of the Green Jobs Initiative launched jointly by the United Nations Environment Programme, the International Labour Organization, and the International Trade Union Congress. As director of Worldwatch's Global Security project, Michael helped coordinate the State of the World 2005 report on "Redefining Global Security" and conducted research examining the opportunities for peacemaking in the wake of un-natural disasters.

Michael's writing has appeared in a wide range of print and online publications, including the Christian Science Monitor, International Herald Tribune, Le Monde Diplomatique, El País, and Frankfurter Rundschau. He has appeared on radio and television programs including the BBC, CNN, NPR, Voice of America, and others. Michael has also spoken at numerous events, including those sponsored by: the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S. State Department, the European Parliament, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Wilton Park/British Foreign Office, the MacArthur Foundation, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, the Global Development Network, the Norwegian Social Forum, the Confederation of Spanish Trade Unions, the World Bank, and a variety of United Nations venues.

Before joining Worldwatch in 1987, Michael was a Corliss Lamont Fellow in Economic Conversion at Columbia University (1986-87) and a research associate at the World Policy Institute in New York City (1984-86). He serves on the board of the New York-based Global Policy Forum and is Senior Advisor to the Institute for Environmental Security in The Hague/Brussels. He is also a member of the Advisory Group on Sustainable Security.

Michael was born and raised in Germany. He is a cum laude graduate of the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where he received a Master's degree in international relations. He lives with his wife and two children on Long Island, New York.

Selected Publications

Green Jobs: Towards Sustainable Work in a Low-Carbon World, Preliminary Report (UNEP, ILO, ITUC Green Jobs Initiative: 21 December 2007), co-authored with Sean Sweeney and Jill Kubit.

Beyond Disasters: Creating Opportunities for Peace, Worldwatch Report 173, June 2007, co-authored with Zoë Chafe.

"Introduction to the Concepts of Environmental Security and Environmental Conflict," in Inventory of Environment and Security Policies and Practices (Institute for Environmental Security: October 2006).

"The New Geopolitics of Oil," Development, September 2006, pp. 56-63.

"Environmental Security: The Policy Agenda," in Robert Picciotto and Rachel Weaving, eds., Security and Development. Investing in Peace and Prosperity (Routledge: 2006), pp. 95-116.

"Turning Disasters into Peacemaking Opportunities," in State of the World 2006 (W.W. Norton & Company: 2006), co-authored with Zoë Chafe.

"Security Redefined," in State of the World 2005 (W.W. Norton & Company: 2005).

The Anatomy of Resource Wars, Worldwatch Paper 162, October 2002).

Working for the Environment: A Growing Source of Jobs, Worldwatch Paper 152, September 2000.