The non-profit Meridian Institute helped launch the CEO Climate Dialogue, a group of top energy executives and environmental organizations, formed to urge Washington policymakers to tackle the threat posed from climate change.

The Dialogue's call for an economy-wide carbon pricing policy is central to its goal of reducing carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050/

It believes a long-term federal commitment to fighting global warming would trigger investments/innovation needed to meet emission target goals, increase business and regulatory certainty and reduce overall climate risk.

Ford Motor, BP, DuPont, Shell, Dominion Energy and Unilever are companies involved with the Dialogue, along with Environmental Defense Fund, Nature Conservancy, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions and World Resources Institute.

Meridian, which has offices in Washington and Dillon (CO), works to bring together representatives of organizations that generally do not cooperate with each other to tackle public policy issues (climate change, food security, public health, emerging technologies).

Its board includes luminaries such as Gordon Conway, former Rockefeller Foundation president, chief scientific advisor to the UK’s Dept. of International Development and professor of London’s Imperial College, and Leon Panetta, ex-California Congressman, chief of staff to president Clinton and director of the CIA.