Time for the Next Policy Forum? Looking Back and Ahead at Critical Moments in Climate Change
In 2006, RFF leaders saw an opportunity in the years ahead to really understand the wide range of potential policy responses and their costs. With the 2006 Climate Policy Forum and subsequent report in 2007, titled Assessing US Climate Policy Options, RFF made substantial progress toward a set of solutions for climate change. The aim was to provide policymakers and stakeholders with well-vetted, detailed options; important criteria for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches; and early identification of industrial and economic challenges across the options.
At RFF, the late Raymond J. Kopp and current President and CEO Billy Pizer, who was then a fellow, led the effort. In an article celebrating Kopp’s life, Pizer describes the project: “Over the course of 18 months, we provided a forum for business leaders across major sectors—electricity, fossil energy, transport, agriculture, heavy industry—to meet one another and learn about the various facets of climate policy,” Pizer writes. “The Climate Policy Forum helped these leaders understand their own issues and questions, target RFF research and expertise to answer those questions, and move the business conversation forward about climate policy.”
Pizer also remembers a genuine curiosity and interest by industry leaders to understand and inform the next generation of climate policies.
“There was a recognition by the companies that they should be prepared,” Pizer says.
David Raney, now retired, was an executive at Honda when the idea came up to gather corporate leaders together for the 2006 forum. “The confidence I had in RFF was the foundation,” Raney explains about joining RFF’s Business Leadership Council (then called the RFF Council). “RFF had enormous credibility on Capitol Hill and had earned respect inside Honda’s executive and engineering ranks. RFF had grown to respect the opportunity they had with Honda and its credibility and engineering prowess, honesty, and environmental leadership—we ‘liked’ each other. It was a good fit.”
Raney, an early cheerleader of the effort alongside Kopp, helped convince about 25 corporate executives to participate in a series of events. Raney emphasized that executives were open to joining these convenings because they were confident that the end product would be unbiased and informative, rather than an advocacy document. The diverse set of companies included automobile companies like Honda and Toyota, oil companies like Chevron and ExxonMobil, energy companies like Duke Energy and Southern Company, and financial institutions like Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation supported the effort. (A full list of participants and funders can be found on page 202 of the 2007 report that came out of the original Climate Policy Forum.)