Rafe Pomerance

Rafe Pomerance was a force of conscience in the American environmental movement — a lobbyist, diplomat, and tireless advocate who understood the danger of climate change decades before it became a household concern. Born on July 19, 1946 in New York City and raised in Cos Cob, Connecticut, he grew up in a family where civic engagement was a way of life: his mother campaigned for the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, his father served in state and local politics, and his aunt wrote books on conservation. From the woods behind the estate where he grew up to the corridors of Capitol Hill, Rafe carried the belief that the natural world was worth fighting for. After graduating from Cornell University in 1968 with a degree in history, Pomerance served as a VISTA volunteer and began building a career at the intersection of policy and the environment. In 1972 he joined the Urban Environment Conference to work on clean air and transportation reform, and in 1973 he founded the National Clean Air Coalition. His move to Friends of the Earth in 1975 sharpened his skills as a legislative strategist; by 1980 he was serving as the organization's president. The pivotal moment of Pomerance's career came in 1979, when he read a dense EPA report on coal and stumbled upon references to global warming. Recognizing what the science implied, he resolved to sound the alarm. Working with scientist Gordon MacDonald, he arranged briefings for White House officials and helped catalyze the first National Academy of Sciences climate assessment. At the World Resources Institute through the 1980s and early 1990s, he partnered with colleagues to organize landmark congressional hearings in June 1986 that brought James Hansen's testimony before the nation. As Deputy Assistant Secretary of State from 1993 to 1999, Pomerance helped negotiate both the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. In his later years, he founded Arctic 21 and joined the Woodwell Climate Research Center, pressing the world to understand that the fate of the Arctic was the fate of its coasts. His life's work was immortalized in Nathaniel Rich's 2018 book "Losing Earth." Rafe passed away on May 21, 2026, from lung cancer at the age of 79. He is survived by his wife Lenore, their three children, and seven grandchildren. He is remembered for his contagious positive energy, his generous spirit, and his unwavering conviction that the climate crisis demanded nothing less than full human attention.