With Opportunity Green since: February 2023
“I’m proud to lead a team of brilliant lawyers dedicated to tackling climate change, and it’s been great to see the legal team grow and expand into new areas like agriculture and trucks, and gain recognition as experts in our field. It’s been an exciting journey so far, with a personal highlight being launching Opportunity Green’s first piece of litigation, where we led a collaboration of European NGOs to challenge the EU Commission in court over its decision to include polluting fossil fuel planes and ships in its flagship sustainable finance legislation, the Taxonomy.”
Climate law and litigation, strategic legal interventions, aviation law, public international law, corporate law
David is a qualified solicitor who spent his early career specialising in corporate and commercial work at law firms in the UK and Aotearoa New Zealand. After gaining an LLM in Global Environment and Climate Change Law from the University of Edinburgh, David was inspired to focus his practice on using the law to tackle climate change and joined Opportunity Green’s legal team.
As Legal Director, David leads Opportunity Green’s legal team and has overall responsibility for our strategic legal work, targeting systemic change in high-polluting sectors. His work focuses on implementing legal strategies to drive better climate regulation, tackle perceived legal barriers to climate action, and hold governments and polluters accountable. His team of legal experts work on legal research, strategy and actions in sectors including shipping, aviation, agriculture, trucks, finance and buildings.
Outside of Opportunity Green, David is a Trustee of the UK Environmental Law Association.
David is regularly quoted on climate law issues in the media, including Reuters, Euractiv and Climate Home News, and has written on why we need to clear the air on legal routes to taxing aviation fuel for Business Green.
Publications
Learn more about David's work at OG
