Craig Hart

Craig A. Hart is a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University’s Energy Policy & Climate program in Washington, D.C. Craig serves as Executive Director of the Pace Energy and Climate Center at Pace University’s Haub School of Law and is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center.

Craig has worked with governments and projects in the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa on renewables, energy efficiency, grid modernization and microgrids, and low carbon technologies for the fossil-fuel power generation sector. In the utility reform area, Craig advised Uzbekistan in its ongoing energy market and utility reform initiative leading to the restructuring of the state energy company Uzbekneftegaz and advised the country of Georgia’s Ministry of Energy in reforming its state electricity transmission company.

Craig is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ Council on Standards and Certification, which establishes and maintains ASME safety and performance standards, and monitors their implementation globally. Additionally, he serves on the International Standards Organization’s U.S. Technical Advisory Committee 265 for carbon sequestration technologies.

Craig’s academic research concentrates on energy transition and decarbonization in the context of economic development and firm competitiveness. His work includes an extensive focus on China, having lived and worked in China for almost a decade, teaching at Tsinghua University and Renmin (People’s) University of China, and consulting to intergovernmental organizations. He writes regularly on China’s energy transition, including Mapping China’s Climate & Energy Policies (now in its fourth edition, 2019).

Prior to academia, Craig practiced law in the energy infrastructure project finance, capital markets, and carbon management fields, representing project developers, lenders, and investors focusing on energy infrastructure, clean energy, and high technology. His practice included practicing with the international law firms White & Case and O’Melveny & Myers, and serving as counsel to the Asia Development Bank’s Future Carbon Fund, a $115 million fund to finance renewables and carbon reduction projects under the Clean Development Mechanism throughout Asia and the Pacific.

Craig earned a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology researching decarbonization paths with the aim of preventing dangerous climate change, a bachelor’s and a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley, and a master’s in economics from New York University.