Kate Abend

Union of Concerned Scientists

Kate directs the outreach component of UCS’s campaign to advance strong federal climate legislation.  She supervises state consultants working to build diverse coalitions and generate media attention.  She also educates lawmakers and their staff about UCS’s climate impacts and solutions analyses.  Prior to her current role, Kate coordinated outreach activities for UCS’s Clean Energy Program, where she helped win Senate passage of a federal renewable electricity standard.

Before joining UCS in June 2002, Kate was the global warming associate at U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), where she worked on campaigns to increase energy efficiency and renewable energy generation, clean up dirty coal-fired power plants, and cut subsidies to polluting industries. She was U.S. PIRG’s lead advocate in a national campaign to increase automobile fuel economy standards.

Kate has been quoted extensively in the media and served as an expert witness before the Energy Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Science Committee.  She is a contributor to UCS’s January, 2007 report Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Science.  

Kate is a JD candidate at the Georgetown University Law Center and holds a B.S. in ecology and environmental policy from the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and the Environment. She lives in Washington, D.C.