Lily Bermel is a Visiting Fellow at the Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy, where she focuses on articulating a new vision for the energy transition. She is also a consultant with climate philanthropies, working to advance international clean industrial strategy through economic statecraft and trade.
Previously, Lily worked for Brian Deese at MIT Sloan’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research. There, she researched investment in clean energy technologies with the Clean Investment Monitor, contributed to the design of the Clean Energy Marshall Plan, and developed other proposals on trade policy, multilateral finance, and electricity market reform. As Deese’s speechwriter, their work and proposals have been published in Foreign Affairs, WaPo, WSJ, The Atlantic, and the Financial Times.
Before joining MIT, Lily served for three years as a policy advisor on the U.S. State Department climate team, led by Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry. She negotiated on behalf of the United States in multilateral fora, strengthened institutional capacity to work on climate policy, drove private sector engagement, and advanced initiatives to mitigate non-CO2 gases. Earlier, she contributed to Massachusetts climate policy at the state and local levels. Lily received a B.S. in Environment and Sustainability from Cornell University.