Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change2 Jun 2021

Enforcing the Laws of Nature - Ep44: James Thornton

James Thornton is the CEO and founder of ClientEarth, a leading environmental law organisation in Europe. Since its establishment in 2007, ClientEarth tackled world’s most pressing environmental issues such as biodiversity loss, climate change, and toxic chemicals using advocacy, litigation and research. ClientEarth now operates globally with offices in London, Brussels, Warsaw, New York and Beijing.

Before this, he was a Senior Lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in Los Angeles for 9 years. His role involved setting up the citizens' enforcement project specifically working on the Clean Water Act under the Reagan Administration. In 6 months he successfully won 60 cases in federal courts.

Named by the New Statesman as one of the top 10 people who could change the world and one of the top 100 lawyers practising in the UK, James is at the forefront of utilising the legal system and advocacy to create real climate action. In 2016, The Financial Times awarded him its Special Achievement Award at the Innovative Lawyer Awards.

James Thornton is a Zen Bhuddist and started a meditation organisation for environmental activists called Positive Futures. James was born in New York and studied at Yale University

Episoder(278)

Why Are We Electrifying So Slowly? The Electrification Staircase | Ep256: Adrian Hiel, Silvia Madeddu, William Drake & Thomas Butler

Every single scenario for the future that looks at a cleaner energy system has electrification growing to 60, 70, 80% or more, and yet we don't make rapid progress. Why? One of the reasons we don't ma...

6 Mai 55min

Europe Needs Clean Tech More Than Ever | Ep 255: Thomas Pellerin-Carlin

This week Cleaning Up is back in Brussels, with a deep dive into European energy policy as the continent grapples with the reality of ambitious climate targets, very high energy prices and the vulnera...

29 Apr 1h 15min

The Era Of Fossil Fuel Unreliability Has Begun | Ep 254: Jennifer Granholm

What happens when global energy supply chains can no longer be trusted? Has the U.S. given up its edge in the clean energy race to China? And can politics keep up with the speed of the energy transiti...

22 Apr 45min

The Mother of All Energy Crises | Ep253: Fatih Birol

The news agenda this year has been entirely dominated by energy related stories, whether it's the war in Europe being pursued by Russia — formerly Europe's most significant energy provider — the U.S. ...

15 Apr 27min

⁠Energy Shocks, Inflation & Risk: How a Central Bank Responds to Crisis | Ep252: Pierre Wunsch

How should a central bank respond to energy shocks? Will high oil and gas prices bolster the uptake of renewables? And what is the true cost of net zero 2050? This week on Cleaning Up, host Michael Li...

8 Apr 1h 7min

Can We Cool The Planet, And Should We Try? | Ep251: Ricken Patel

What happens if we’re underestimating the speed and scale of climate risk? This week on Cleaning Up, Bryony Worthington sits down with Ricken Patel, Principal at Climate Hub & Founder of activist netw...

1 Apr 1h 7min

Heavy Engineering Solutions for High-Emission Problems | Ep250: Emmanouil Kakaras

This week on Cleaning Up, Michael Liebreich is joined by Emmanouil Kakaras, engineer, academic, and Senior Advisor at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries EMEA, for a grounded, technical conversation about the...

25 Mar 1h 10min

Can We Stop Data Centres Breaking The Grid? Ep249: Varun Sivaram & Steve Smith

This week on Cleaning Up, host Michael Liebreich sits down with Varun Sivaram and Steve Smith to explore one of the most urgent, and overlooked, challenges of the AI revolution: how to power it withou...

19 Mar 1h 6min