Ted Halstead

As of January 2020, corporate funders of Americans for Carbon Dividends include: AWEA, BP, Calpine, ConocoPhillips, EDF Renewables, Exelon, ExxonMobil, First Solar, Ford, GM, IBM, Shell and Vistra Energy.

Since then, the Climate Leadership Council has recruited the broadest climate coalition in U.S. history as Founding Members. As of December 2019, the Founding Members of the Climate Leadership Council include:

In 2019, the Climate Leadership Council helped organize the largest and most prominent public statement in the history of the economics profession.  The Economists Statement on Carbon Dividends, first published in The Wall Street Journal, was signed by over 3,500 U.S. economists, including all four living former Chairs of the Federal Reserve (Janet Yellen, Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker), 27 Nobel Laureate economists, and 15 former Chairs of the President's Council of Economic Advisors.

In his talk, Halstead states, “I’m convinced that the road to climate progress in the United Stated runs through the Republican party and the business community.” He also explains that under their plan, “We would end up with less regulation and far less pollution at the same time, while helping working class Americans get ahead.”

Halstead is founding CEO of Americans For Carbon Dividends, a 501(c)(4) lobbying organization whose purpose is to promote a national carbon dividends solution. The national co-chairs of Americans for Carbon Dividends are former Republican Senate majority leader Trent Lott and former Democratic Senator John Breaux. Americans for Carbon Dividends was publicly launched in June 2018 with the publication of a New York Times op-ed by Senators Lott and Breaux, entitled “How to Break the Climate Impasse.”

Halstead gave a TED Talk in 2017 that has over 1.5 million views and has been translated into 20 languages. He was selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

The Climate Leadership Council was officially launched on February 8, 2017 with the publication of "The Conservative Case for Carbon Dividends", co-authored by James A. Baker III, Martin Feldstein, Halstead, Gregory Mankiw, Henry M. Paulson, Jr., George P. Shultz, Thomas Stephenson, and Rob Walton. This report argues that a new climate strategy based on carbon dividends can strengthen America's economy, reduce regulation, help working-class Americans, shrink government, and promote national security. A profile in Bloomberg suggested the release of this report "may be the biggest day for climate policy since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015."

On May 17, 2017, Halstead delivered a TED Talk entitled “A Climate Solution Where All Sides Can Win” at the 2017 TED Annual Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. As of December 2019, this TED Talk had received over 1.5 million views and was translated into 20 languages.

The Climate Leadership Council was soft-launched on May 19, 2016, with the publication of Halstead's white paper, "Unlocking the Climate Puzzle". This report summarizes the economic, geopolitical, and psychological reasons that climate progress is deadlocked, and suggests that a carbon dividends plan could overcome each of these barriers.

Although Halstead and his wife hoped to complete their circumnavigation by returning to the Mediterranean via the Red Sea, the piracy situation in the Gulf of Aden in 2012 was too dangerous to permit this. So they sold their boat in Bali in late 2012 after 4.5 years of non-stop sailing, during which they visited 5 continents.

Redefining Progress and Halstead also promoted the idea of a revenue-neutral carbon tax, which the government of British Columbia was the first to implement in 2008.

New America's original mission was to bring new voices and new ideas into the public debate, and to break out of the traditional liberal and conservative categories. James Fallows was the original chairman of New America's board of directors. Eric Schmidt, former Executive Chairman of Google and Alphabet Inc, served as chairman of New America's Board from 2008 to 2016.

In March 2008, shortly after getting married, Halstead and his wife Veronique Bardach set sail from France aboard a 50-foot Catana catamaran that they named Verite (a play on the first two letters of their names and of their dog Ria, who accompanied them).

Steve Coll succeeded Halstead as President and CEO of New America in 2007. Anne-Marie Slaughter became New America's third President and CEO in 2013.

On December 10, 2001, The Washington Post published a Styles Section profile on Halstead entitled "Big Thinker: Ted Halstead's New America Foundation Has It All: Money, Brains and Buzz".

Halstead founded New America (formerly known as New America Foundation) in 1999, at the age of 30, and served as founding President and CEO until 2007. Under his leadership, the organization grew rapidly to a staff of 100 and an annual budget of $10 million.

In 1997, Redefining Progress organized the Economists' Statement on Climate Change to promote market-based solutions to climate change. Over 2,600 economists and 19 Nobel Prize winners signed the statement.

Halstead stepped down as Executive Director of Redefining Progress in 1997, moving into a position on the board. Redefining Progress closed its doors in 2008.

In 1995, Redefining Progress released the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), an alternative to the GDP that takes social and environmental costs into account. The GPI was launched in an October 1995 cover story in The Atlantic entitled "If The Economy Is Up, Why Is America Down?" that Halstead co-authored with colleagues Clifford Cobb and Jonathan Rowe.

In 1993, at age 25, Halstead founded Redefining Progress, an environmental economics think tank based in San Francisco, with a $15,000 seed grant from Echoing Green. Halstead served as Executive Director from 1993 to 1997.

Halstead earned his bachelor's degree in 1990 from Dartmouth College, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in philosophy. He received his MPA in 1998 from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where he was a Montgomery Fellow.

Ted Halstead (born July 25, 1968) is an American climate expert, author, policy entrepreneur, and public speaker who has founded four non-profit think tanks and advocacy organizations: the Climate Leadership Council, Americans for Carbon Dividends, New America, and Redefining Progress. His areas of expertise include climate policy, economic policy, environmental policy, healthcare, and political reform.