Pete Harrison

Before joining EDF, Pete was the Executive Director for EU Policy at the European Climate Foundation (ECF), which is Europe’s biggest funder of activities to tackle the climate emergency. There, he oversaw the foundation’s work to support an ambitious EU Green Deal, the EU’s flagship project to make Europe the first climate neutral continent. This involved overseeing ECF’s teams implementing strategies to curb emissions from transport, buildings, energy systems, land use, and industry.

This came after several years of leading ECF’s work to clean up the mobility system, with the end goal of ensuring Europe makes a rapid and just transition to e-mobility, and the first continent to move beyond the internal combustion engine – a goal that is now enshrined in EU legislation. Other policy achievements include steering Europe away from crop-based biofuels and towards more sustainable alternatives, firstly in the road sector and most recently in aviation.

Prior to joining the ECF, Pete worked for the international news agency Reuters for over a decade, where he covered many different markets and businesses as a reporter on the London Stock Exchange. He also covered general news issues such as terrorism trials and security, eventually moving to Brussels to lead Reuters coverage of all aspects of European energy policy and geopolitics.

The genesis of Pete’s career was in marine biology, and he spent 4 years leading groups of divers to explore the coral reefs of East Africa and the Red Sea. Marine exploration remains his passion and he has written several books on the subject.