Susan Biniaz
Board of Directors
Sue Biniaz is an international lawyer and climate diplomat who has played a central role in shaping U.S. and global climate policy over the past three-plus decades. For the past several years, she has been teaching at Yale and other academic institutions, helping to train a new generation of climate‑policy professionals.
Sue was most recently Deputy Special Envoy for Climate in the Biden Administration’s climate diplomacy leadership team. Sue previously served as a Deputy Legal Adviser at the State Department, with broad responsibility for international law issues, as well as the Department's lead climate lawyer for over twenty-five years. In that capacity, she served as the legal adviser for the negotiation of all the key climate instruments including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol, the Copenhagen Accord, and the Paris Agreement.
She holds an undergraduate degree from Yale College in Russian Studies and a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Columbia Law School. She is currently a Fellow at the Yale Jackson School, the University of Pennsylvania's Perry World House, and the University of Chicago's Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth, as well as a diplomatic advisor to Oceans 5.