Gina McCarthy named Biden’s domestic climate czar

Gina McCarthy, former administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Obama and a proud Canton native, is returning to the federal government in a full-time, senior role as President-elect Joe Biden’s national climate advisor.

Hailed by the president-elect as “one of the nation’s most trusted and accomplished voices on climate issues,” McCarthy — who got her start in government 40 years ago as Canton’s first full-time health agent — will be tasked with leading the newly formed White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy and driving the new administration’s ambitious domestic climate agenda.

Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy (Photo courtesy of the Biden-Harris Transition Team)

Former U.S. Secretary of State and fellow Massachusetts native John Kerry will serve as her international counterpart and share intertwined assignments as the newly appointed special presidential envoy for climate. Both will work to reinstitute all of the Obama-era policies and agreements that were eliminated under the Trump administration — including the Clean Power Plan that McCarthy had spearheaded as EPA head — while simultaneously working to reach Biden’s goals of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.

In a statement issued last week announcing McCarthy’s appointment, President-elect Biden said his new climate czar will “drive an ‘all-government’ approach to combating climate change,” requiring coordination and planning across a number of government agencies. She will be part of a broader climate team that includes the secretaries of interior and energy and the new EPA administrator — a group that Biden called “brilliant, tested and trailblazing.”

“They share my belief that we have no time to waste to confront the climate crisis, protect our air and drinking water, and deliver justice to communities that have long shouldered the burdens of environmental harms,” he said. “Together, on behalf of all Americans, they will meet this moment with the urgency it demands — and seize the opportunity to build back better with good-paying union jobs, climate-resilient infrastructure, and a clean energy future that benefits every single community.”

After leaving the EPA in 2017, McCarthy joined the faculty of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and assumed the role of director of the school’s Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment. In January 2020, she was named president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit international environmental advocacy group that has worked for 50 years to “ensure the rights of all people to clean air, clean water, and healthy communities.”

Prior to working in the federal government, McCarthy served as commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection and also held several key posts in Massachusetts government, including deputy secretary for the Office of Commonwealth Development and undersecretary of policy for the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs.

Raised in Canton, McCarthy attended St. John’s School and later graduated from Fontbonne Academy in Milton. She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in social anthropology from UMass Boston and a joint master’s degree in environmental health engineering and planning and policy from Tufts University. In 1980, at age 26, she landed the job as Canton’s health agent and she served in the role for four years, earning the respect of constituents and colleagues and drawing particular praise for her handling of the public health scare that gripped the town following the discovery of PCBs at Indian Line Farm and Toka-Renbe Farm. She also worked for a time on the Stoughton Board of Health and served as that town’s first environmental officer.

McCarthy is married to Kenneth McCarey and they have three adult children: Daniel, Maggie, and Julie.

Short URL: https://www.thecantoncitizen.com/?p=71976

Posted by Jay Turner on Dec 25 2020. Filed under News. Both comments and pings are currently closed.