John Podesta served as Counselor President Barack Obama from January 2014 to February 2015. His duties included overseeing climate change and energy policy.

In 2008, he served as co-chair of President Obama’s transition team. He is the former Chair of the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Center for American Progress and the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Prior to founding the Center in 2003, he served as White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton. He also recently served on the President’s Global Development Council and the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

Additionally, Podesta has held numerous positions on Capitol Hill, including counselor to Democratic Leader Sen. Thomas A. Daschle (1995-1996). A Chicago native, Podesta is a graduate of Knox College and the Georgetown University Law Center, where he is currently a visiting professor of law.

Scholarship

Books

John Podesta, The Power of Progress: How America's Progressives Can (Once Again) Save Our Economy, Our Climate, and Our Country (New York: Crown Publishing Group 2008).

Contributions to Law Reviews and Other Scholarly Journals

John Podesta, Interview, An Interview with John Podesta, 21 Geo. J. Int’l Aff. 41-43 (2020).
John Podesta & Peter Ogden, The Security Implications of Climate Change, 31 Wash. Q. 115-138 (2008). [W]

Selected Contributions to Other Publications

John Podesta, Postcard from America, 14 Pub. Pol'y Research 193-196 (2007).

Book Chapters & Collected Works

John Podesta & Peter Ogden, Security Implications of Climate Scenario 1: Expected Climate Change over the Next Thirty Years, in Climatic Cataclysm: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Climate Change (Kurt M. Campbell ed., Wash., D.C.: Brookings Institution Press 2008).
In The News
March 18, 2016

6 Friendships That Prove Washington’s Not Totally Polarized, coverage in the Washingtonian, March 18, 2016, featuring John Podesta (L'76), Distinguished Visitor from Practice and Adjunct Professor Richard J. Leon.

November 4, 2015

"Cardinal Rodríguez at Georgetown: Without Paris climate deal, 'some countries will not have a future'," coverage by National Catholic Reporter, November 4, 2015, featuring an event discussing Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment with remarks by Professor Edith Brown Weiss and Distinguished Visitor from Practice John Podesta (L’76), former counselor to President Obama on climate change and energy policy.

November 3, 2015

“Cardinal, adviser to pope, sees rich, poor responsible to protect earth,” coverage by CatholicPhilly.com, November 3, 2015, featuring an event discussing Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment with remarks by Professor Edith Brown Weiss and Distinguished Visitor from Practice John Podesta (L’76), former counselor to President Obama on climate change and energy policy.

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