Dr. Stephen Hammer

Dr. Stephen Hammer was selected as the Founding CEO of The New York Climate Exchange in November of 2023. As CEO, Dr. Hammer will lead a first-of-its-kind collaborative model for accelerating climate change solutions for New York City and beyond.

As one of the world’s leading experts on both local and global climate policy matters, Dr. Hammer brings more than thirty years of experience to this role. Prior to joining The Exchange, Dr. Hammer spent a decade at the World Bank where he served as Senior Policy Advisor on urban scale climate solutions and global climate policy and finance issues. As a strategic advisor to senior management, he oversaw many of the Bank’s key climate partnerships with the UNFCCC, the UN Secretary General’s team, and the G20. Before joining the World Bank, Dr. Hammer was a professor at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and at the Pratt Institute.

Dr. Hammer co-founded and co-directed the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN), an international consortium of researchers interested in climate change from an urban perspective. He was also a member of the Energy Policy Task Force advising then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg on PlaNYC, the City’s long-term growth and sustainability initiative. He is an Advisory Board Member for the American Geophysical Union task force on Ethical Framework for Climate Interventions and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition.

Dr. Hammer holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics, an MPP from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a B.S. in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning from the University of California at Davis.