Amy Turner is the Director of the Cities Climate Law Initiative at the Sabin Center, and an Associate Research Scholar at Columbia Law School. Her work focuses on the laws and legal tools cities use to achieve their climate and equity commitments. In addition to legal academic research on municipal carbon mitigation law and policy, Amy consults directly with city attorneys and sustainability professionals on legal questions relating to carbon mitigation in the buildings, transportation, waste and energy sectors. She is particularly interested in the intersection of environmental and municipal law and in identifying legal pathways for cities to enact policies consistent with their climate and equity targets, including through evolving laws such as the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. She is co-author of the book Urban Climate Law from Columbia University Press and is widely cited in press stories on local climate law and policy. Amy is also a senior advisor to the Sustainable Cities Fund.

Prior to joining the Sabin Center in 2019, Amy was the executive director and a co-founder of the NYC Climate Action Alliance. She practiced environmental and transactional law for ten years at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP and in solo practice. Amy graduated from Middlebury College, magna cum laude, and from Harvard Law School, where she was an articles and technical editor for the Harvard Environmental Law Review. She formerly served as co-chair for the New York City Bar Association’s Committee on Environmental Law and currently serves on New York City’s Sustainability Advisory Board, which advises the city on a range of sustainability initiatives, and as vice chair of the board of directors for the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative.