James Gustave Speth was born in the United States in 1942. He graduated from Yale University in 1964, attended Balliol College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar and graduated from Yale Law School in 1969. In 1970, Speth co-founded the Natural Resources Defense Council, where he served as senior attorney until 1977.
From 1977 to 1982, Speth taught as a professor of law at Georgetown University, served as the chairman of the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality, and founded the environmental think tank, the World Resource Institute. From 1993 to 1999, he was Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and chair of the UN Development Group. In 1999, he became the dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University. He retired from Yale in 2009 to assume a professorship at the Vermont Law School and also became a senior fellow at Demos, the Democracy Collaborative, and the Tellus Institute.
Throughout his career, Speth has provided leadership and entrepreneurial initiatives to many task forces and committees whose roles have been to combat environmental degradation, including the President’s Task Force on Global Resources and Environment, the Western Hemisphere Dialogue on Environment and Development and the National Commission on the Environment.
Speth delivered the Beatty Lecture on October 16, 2008, titled "Capitalism and the Environment: from Crisis to Sustainability".
Image: United Nations Photo Library
