Richard Baron is the Director of the Trade Programme at the European Climate Foundation since October 2020.

Prior to joining the ECF, Richard was a climate policy advisor at the OECD; he co-authored Aligning Policies for a Low-Carbon Economy (2015) and Investing in Climate, Investing in Growth, a report to the German presidency of the G20 (2017). He also managed the Round Table on Sustainable Development, a high-level public-private forum on strategic environmental questions, including the decarbonization of electricity, stranded assets, public procurement for low-carbon innovation, and corporate reporting.

Before joining the OECD, Richard was the head of climate change at the IEA where his work included international negotiations, carbon market mechanisms, industrial competitiveness and sectoral approaches, and the role of electricity in climate mitigation. He also worked at IDDRI where he developed the climate policy and competitiveness work area, and studied climate policy modelling at Cired, France, and at the Pacific Northwest Laboratory, Washington DC.