Our Story
Accelerating the Transition 2026 is a project of the Accelerating the Transition organization, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in the San Francisco Bay Area and founded by John J. Berger, Ph.D., an environmental science and policy specialist.
During decades of research and writing about climate change, Dr. Berger found that the U.S. already has the technology needed for a rapid, profitable transition to a fossil-fuel-free energy economy. These findings are documented in his 523-page book, Solving the Climate Crisis: Frontline Reports from the Race to Save the Earth, which outlines clean energy’s potential and the policies required to scale it up.
Following its publication in 2023, and motivated by the urgency of the global climate emergency, Dr. Berger formed Accelerating the Transition to translate research into real-world action through a national clean energy and climate conference. Its original purpose was to spur faster, more decisive federal pro-clean transition policies in the U.S.
However, when the federal government’s opposition to renewable energy became clear in 2025, a decision was made to refocus the conference from the federal to the state, city, county, and regional government levels.
The meeting currently has multiple aims, but foremost is a desire to help facilitate new public-private partnerships to advance the nation’s clean tech and clean energy agenda.
Our hope is to do so by bringing together and cross-pollinating often-siloed sectors of the clean energy and climate-protection ecosystem — public officials, green businesses, investors, and civil society.
We also hope to help identify subnational roadblocks to a swift clean-energy transition in each major economic sector of the nation, while highlighting policies for surmounting those challenges.