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WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Climate Alliance today announced that Julie Cerqueira has been named the Alliance’s new Executive Director to support the Alliance states in the development and execution of strategy to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement. Cerqueira will help advance the climate and clean energy policy priorities of the Alliance’s governors and their offices by facilitating dialogue, promoting the sharing of peer-to-peer expertise, and identifying multi-state policy and programmatic interventions. Serving most recently as a climate policy advisor in the U.S. Department of State, Cerqueira brings to the Alliance a wealth of experience driving multi- stakeholder climate coalitions and launching high-level initiatives that make tangible progress toward addressing the global climate challenge. The U.S. Climate Alliance Secretariat is housed at the UN Foundation.
Cerqueira most recently served as a Senior Advisor to the Special Envoy for Climate Change, later joining the Office of Global Change, both with the U.S. Department of State. In this role, she led U.S. engagement in strategic partnerships including the Climate and Clean Air Coalition and helped launch high profile climate deliverables and commitments for key milestones including the North America Leaders Summit, the G20 Leaders Summit, and the U.S. Chairmanship of the Arctic Council. Cerqueira also led the Department’s engagement with sub- national governments on climate change to build a groundswell of support that helped secure adoption of the historic Paris Agreement on climate change. Prior to her work in the federal government, Cerqueira worked with developing countries on designing sectoral climate policies at a Washington, DC-based climate think tank, and spent four years in Southeast Asia working with local communities, governments and the private sector on environmental projects and promotion of policy reforms.
Launched on June 1, 2017 by the governors of Washington, New York, and California to help fill the void left by the previous administration’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, the Alliance has grown to include 24 governors from across the U.S. representing approximately 60% of the U.S. economy and 55% of the U.S. population. Governors in the Alliance have pledged to collectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2025, at least 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030, and collectively achieve overall net-zero greenhouse gas emissions as soon as practicable, and no later than 2050.
The Alliance’s states and territories continue to demonstrate that climate action goes hand-in-hand with economic growth, job creation, and better public health. While reducing emissions by 18% between 2005 and 2021, Alliance members grew their collective GDP by nearly 30%. The coalition’s states and territories are employing more workers in the clean energy sector, achieving lower levels of dangerous air pollutants, and preparing more effectively for climate impacts and executing more pre-disaster planning than the rest of the country.
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