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(306)

The Scandal at The Heart of The Energy Transition | Ep275: Jan Rosenow

Around two-thirds of the energy we put into today’s energy system ends up as rejected heat. So are we measuring the energy transition all wrong?Professor Jan Rosenow joins Michael Liebreich to unpack ...

23 Sep 1h 5min

The Race Is On To Control AI | Episode 274: Afonso Salema & Sam Winter-Levy

More than 80% of the world’s advanced AI compute is concentrated in the US and China. For Europe and other middle powers, the question may no longer be how to win the AI race, but how to avoid becomin...

16 Sep 1h 5min

Mexico Wants To Build An $8,000 EV For Everyone | Ep273: Roberto Capuano

Can Mexico build an electric car for $8,000, and use it to create an entirely new domestic industry? This week on Cleaning Up, Bryony Worthington visits Mexico City to sit down with Roberto Capuano, d...

9 Sep 57min

The Testbed for Asia's Clean-Tech Future | Ep272: Jaime Z. Urquijo

Can the Philippines become a testbed for Southeast Asia’s clean-tech future? Kicking off Season 19 of Cleaning Up, guest host Marie Cheong meets Jaime Z. Urquijo, Urban Estates Group Head at Ayala La...

2 Sep 1h 4min

The Good, Bad and Downright Ugly of Australia's Energy Transition | Deep Dive Australia 09: Anna Freeman & Michael Liebreich

Australia has become a laboratory for the energy transition, what can the rest of the world learn? After two weeks travelling across Australia and meeting the leaders shaping its energy transition, Mi...

26 Aug 1h 3min

The Next Frontier of Electrification? Industrial Heat | Ep271: James Macnaghten

Around the world, factories making food, drink, pharmaceuticals and other everyday products rely on steam, often produced by fossil-fuel boilers. James Macnaghten, founder and CEO of Caldera, is betti...

19 Aug 39min

How Much Better Can Solar Get? Deep Dive Australia 08: Martin Green

Solar was once dismissed as a marginal technology. Today, it is transforming the global energy system, and few people have done more to make that possible than Professor Martin Green. Innovations deve...

17 Aug 52min

AI Has An Electricity Problem | Ep270: Arshad Mansoor

Will AI break the grid? As hyperscalers race to build ever-larger data centres, electricity demand is soaring. The question is no longer whether power demand will grow, but by how much, how quickly, a...

12 Aug 1h 8min