Nate Hultman is the founder and director of the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland, and professor in the School of Public Policy. Hultman’s work focuses on developing, setting and achieving ambitious national climate goals, including nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement. This work includes diverse analytical and policy approaches to national climate strategies, including climate target setting, assessment, implementation and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement; U.S. NDCs and long-term net-zero strategy; international climate policy; the role of subnational actors to support national  and global climate action; U.S.-China bilateral climate engagement; non-CO2 greenhouse gas reductions; and national climate strategies in China, Indonesia, Brazil, India, Korea and others.

Hultman has served in government several times. From June 2024 to January 2025, he was distinguished senior advisor for climate ambition in the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate at the U.S. Department of State, where he contributed to the 2035 U.S. NDC, bilateral country engagements on NDCs and the COP29 Baku climate negotiations. Previously, from 2021-22, Hultman served as senior advisor in the Office of the Special rom June 2024 to January 2025, Hultman was on leave from the University of Maryland, serving as distinguished senior advisor for climate ambition in the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate at the U.S. Department of State, where he led the writing of the 2021 U.S. Long-Term Strategy and helped negotiate the U.S.-China Joint Glasgow Declaration at COP26. In the Obama White House, he helped develop the 2025 U.S. NDC and participated in the Lima and Paris climate negotiations.

Hultman has participated in the UN climate negotiations as a non-governmental observer for over 27 years, starting with the Kyoto meeting. He founded CGS in 2016 to support the cycle of ambition and action under the Paris Agreement and has supported its growth to a research organization of over 60 people. He has also been a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC and a visiting fellow at the University of Oxford. He holds a B.A. in Physics from Carleton College and a Ph.D. in Energy & Resources from the University of California, Berkeley.