William Moomaw is Emeritus Professor of international Environmental Policy and founding director of the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at The Fletcher School. He received his B.A. degree in chemistry from Williams College and Ph.D. in physical chemistry from MIT. He had a 26-year career in chemistry and environmental studies at Williams College, where he directed the Center for Environmental Studies. He served as AAAS Science Fellow in the U.S. Senate, where he worked on legislation that successfully addressed ozone depletion, and on legislation responding to the 1973 energy crisis. He began working on climate change in 1988 as the first director of the climate program at World Resources Institute in Washington. He has been a lead author of five Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Reports. The IPCC shared the Nobel Peace Prize for its climate work in 2007. He chairs the board of directors of two climate science and policy organizations, The Climate Group North America and Woods Hole Research Center. He also serves on the boards of directors of The Nature Conservancy of Massachusetts, the Consensus Building Institute, Earthwatch Institute, and is on the National Advisory Boards of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Young Voices for the Planet.
He and his wife, Margot, completed a zero net energy home in Williamstown, MA in 2007 that produces sufficient solar electricity to meet all of its heating, lighting and appliance requirements while exporting surplus power to the grid. They have recently added more solar panels for a battery powered electric vehicle.
