Christopher Flavin, President Emeritus

Christopher Flavin is President Emeritus of the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based international research organization focused on energy, resource, and environmental issues. Flavin is a leading voice on the potential for new energy technologies and strategies to replace fossil fuels—increasing energy security and avoiding dangerous climate change. He is co-author of three books on energy, including Power Surge: Guide to the Coming Energy Revolution, which anticipated many of the changes now underway in world energy markets.

Flavin is a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy and serves as a board member of the Climate Institute. He is on the Advisory Boards of the American Council on Renewable Energy and the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. He has participated in several historic international conferences, including the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and the Climate Change Conference in Kyoto Japan in 1997. He regularly provides strategy advice to government officials and business and NGO leaders around the globe.

Flavin is a regular co-author of the annual State of the World Report and speaks frequently to business, university, and policy audiences, testifies before national and state legislatures, and meets frequently with government and international leaders. Flavin has written for a range of popular and scholarly periodicals, including The New York Times, Technology Review, The Harvard International Review, and TIME Magazine. Flavin is a native of Monterey California and a cum laude graduate of Williams College, where he studied economics, biology, and environmental studies.

Selected Publications

• "Building a Low-Carbon Economy," in State of the World 2008 (W.W. Norton & Company, 2008).
• "China, India, and the New World Order," in State of the World 2006 (W.W. Norton & Company, 2006), co-authored with Gary Gardner.
• "Changing the Oil Economy," in State of the World 2005 (W.W. Norton & Company, 2005), co-authored with Tom Prugh and Janet L. Sawin.
• Rising Sun, Gathering Winds: Policies to Stabilize the Climate and Strengthen Economies, Worldwatch Paper 138, November 1997, co-authored with Seth Dunn.
• Power Surge: Guide to the Coming Energy Revolution (W.W. Norton & Company, 1994).