Karen Florini

About Karen Florini

Karen splits her time between two climate-change nonprofits: C-Change Conversations, and the Climate Democracy Initiative. At C-Change Conversations, she serves as Strategic Advisor, helping the organization enhance its non-partisan engagement with strategic audiences in key geographies. At CDI, she continues the Disenfranchised by Climate Change project she started during her April 2024 residency at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center in Italy.From 2017 through 2024, Karen held multiple leadership roles at Climate Central, a non-profit climate science research and communication organization that creates highly localized information on climate impacts and solutions.Between April 2015 and January 2017, Karen served as Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change at the U.S. Department of State. In that capacity, she helped lead the Global Climate Change Initiative, a whole-of-government mechanism for integrating climate change considerations into foreign assistance. She also led the State Department’s engagement with businesses, state and local governments, and civil society in the climate negotiations context. In addition, she headed the State Department’s portfolio on short-lived climate pollutants, which included overseeing U.S. participation in the multilateral Climate and Clean Air Coalition, co-chairing the Coalition’s Oil/Gas Methane Partnership, and chairing the Arctic Council’s Expert Group on Black Carbon and Methane.Previously, Karen worked at Environmental Defense Fund, where among other responsibilities she was Managing Director for International Climate and earlier led the Environmental Health Program. A long-time alto in the Choral Arts Society of Washington, she currently serves as Vice-Chair of its Board. Her combined 30-plus years of service on non-profit boards also includes 18 years as a Trustee of Oberlin College. She earned a bachelor’s degree with majors in biology and environmental policy at Oberlin, and a J.D. at Harvard Law School, where she was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Environmental Law Review, but now regards herself as a recovering lawyer.

Experience

1. Strategic Advisor

   C-Change Conversations

   Jan 2025 — Present

Education

• Oberlin College

  Bachelor’s Degree

• Harvard Law School

  Juris Doctor (J.D.)

Skills

• Public Speaking
• Sustainability
• Public Policy
• Grant Writing
• Fundraising
• Strategic Planning
• Nonprofit Organizations
• Government
• Environmental Policy