Barbara Finamore is the Senior Strategic Director for Asia at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). She has four decades of experience in environmental law and energy policy, with a focus on China for 30 years. In 1996, she founded NRDC’s China Program, the first clean energy program to be launched by an international NGO. She led NRDC in helping to develop many of the nation’s firsts, among them energy codes for residential and commercial buildings, a research and development program for clean vehicles, and a utility-based initiative for energy conservation.
Ms. Finamore served as President and Chair of the Professional Association for China’s Environment (PACE) and was co-founder and President of the China-U.S. Energy Innovation Alliance. In 2017, Ms. Finamore was named a member of Foreign Policy’s “The U.S.-China 50”, a group of 50 individuals who are powering the world’s most complex and consequential relationship. She is the author of “Will China Save the Planet?” (Polity Press), called “a highly readable and informative overview of China’s role in the global climate change battle.”
Ms. Finamore also worked for the U.S. Departments of Justice and Interior, the United Nations Development Program, and the Center for International Environmental Law. She holds a J.D. degree with honors from Harvard Law School.