Running for Office: Why Climate Candidates Should Run for Local Government

The climate crisis is the defining issue of our time. State and local governments are central to the fight on climate change, especially in the face of the Trump administration’s denial of the crisis and rollbacks of Obama-era climate policies. We need energetic leaders who know how to urgently address the joint problems of climate change action and wealth inequality at the same time. Our speaker for this webinar is Katherine Walsh who spent the last ten years of her career calling on elected officials to take climate action and giving them the tools to measure and manage their climate risk and to set more ambitious emissions reduction targets. And this past June, Katherine ran for the NY State Assembly seat in the district where she was born and raised in Southern Brooklyn, ultimately receiving 2,446 votes (roughly 23%) in a 4 way race challenging a 26year incumbent. Katherine will talk about  her experience running and why more candidates with a focus in environment and climate should run for local office.

Katherine Walsh is an urban planner, a former teacher, and a climate activist. She worked with over a hundred cities from the United States to pledge to the Paris Climate Agreement and for the past 7 years, has managed the cities and states program at CDP, the world’s largest environmental disclosure platform. Katie launched CDP’s cities efforts to finance sustainable infrastructure projects and works with 200 city governments to measure and manage their climate risk and emissions reduction activities.

Katherine was born and raised in Sunset Park, in Southern Brooklyn, NY and now lives in the same home where she grew up. She spent 15 years studying/working in several U.S. cities –  Washington, D.C. Boston, San Francisco and Philadelphia as well as in Taiwan and China. In 2018, Katherine was elected to her home district’s local Brooklyn County Committee. She also sits on the local Community Board and serves as Chair of a Trucking Ad Hoc SubCommittee to fight for safe streets and clean air. Katherine holds a Master’s Degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in International Business Relations and Environmental and Energy Policy and a Master’s from Tufts University in Urban Environmental Planning. 

Listen to a recent podcast interview with Katherine here.
Katherine’s Ballotpedia overview
Katherine’s campaign website: www.katherineforassembly.com