About Me
In my work as an academic researcher, educator, and policy adviser, I focus on climate policy design and implementation at the domestic and international level, including its intersections with environmental, energy, financial market and trade policy.
This section provides an account of my academic and professional background. A detailed C.V. is linked in the sidebar.
Dr. Michael Mehling is Deputy Director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). For over two decades, he has accompanied the design and implementation of climate policies around the world, advising decision makers in over a dozen countries, testifying before or briefing legislators in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, and serving as an expert in climate litigation and arbitration cases. His work focuses on instruments of climate and energy policy, including carbon pricing, carbon markets, border carbon adjustments, international climate governance, comparative energy and climate policy, and the drivers and conditions of national energy transitions.
Previously, he served as a Professor at the University of Strathclyde Law School, and as the founding President of Ecologic Institute in Washington DC, an environmental policy think tank with partner offices in Berlin and Brussels. As a climate policy expert, he has advised and coordinated research projects for government agencies in Brazil, Chile, China, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Indonesia, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, South Korea, Thailand, Türkiye, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam, as well as intergovernmental entities including the Asian Development Bank, the European Parliament, the European Commission, the International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP), the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), and the World Bank Group.
He has helped pioneer several initiatives in the areas of climate law and policy, and is a founding board member of, inter alia, the Blockchain & Climate Institute (BCI) in London, the European Association of Climate Law (EACL), and the European Roundtable on Climate Change and Sustainable Transition (ERCST) in Brussels. He is also founder and Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly Carbon & Climate Law Review (Lexxion Publisher), the first academic journal dedicated to climate law and regulation. Currently, Michael serves as a non-executive director on the boards of Climate Strategies in London; Ecologic Institute in Washington DC and Berlin; EACL; and ERCST; as well as the advisory board of the Institute for Climate Protection, Energy and Mobility (IKEM) in Berlin; and the Scientific Committee of the Enel Foundation in Rome.
His affiliations include serving as a manager of the Konrad-von-Moltke Fund, an Associated Researcher with the Energy Policy Research Group (EPRG) at the University of Cambridge, a Policy Advisor of the Center for Climate and Trade at the Climate Leadership Council (CLC) in Washington, D.C., a Senior Advisor with the Florence School of Regulation (FSR) at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, and a Non-Resident Fellow with the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) in Helsinki. In the past, he co-chaired the Scientific Committee of the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC), served on the Board of Directors of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources US (IUCN-US) in Washington, DC, the Advisory Board of the International Policy Coalition for Sustainable Growth of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington DC, United States and as a Commissioner with the Commission on Carbon Competitiveness (C3) in Ottawa, ON.
Michael has held research and teaching appointments at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, Queen’s University in Kingston, ON, and the Universities of Greifswald, Helsinki and Constance, and has been the recipient of various grants and awards, including a John J. McCloy Fellowship from the American Council on Germany. His research has been published in the leading peer-reviewed journals on international law, environmental law and policy, climate and energy policy, and trade law and policy. He is also author or editor of a number of books, including Climate Change and the Law (Springer, 2013), the Research Handbook on Climate Finance and Investment Law (Edward Elgar, 2025), The Carbon Market Challenge: Preventing Abuse Through Effective Governance (Cambridge University Press, 2022) and Governing Carbon Markets with Distributed Ledger Technology (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
A recognized expert on capacity building for climate policy design and implementation, he has helped design, contributed to or facilitated climate policy outreach and training activities for the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the European Union (EU), the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUKN), the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), the International Trade Center (ITC), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), and the World Bank Partnerships for Market Readiness (PMR) and Market Implementation (PMI). He has also served as editor or lead author for three reference manuals, Emissions Trading in Practice: A Handbook on Design and Implementation (World Bank and ICAP, 2016; 2nd ed. 2021), the Guide to Linking Emissions Trading Systems (ICAP, 2018), and Governance of Emissions Trading Systems (World Bank and ICAP, 2022).
His work and expertise have been featured in various mainstream media outlets, including Bloomberg, The Economist, the Financial Times, the Globe and Mail, National Public Radio, NBC News, the New York Times, Politico, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. Trained as a lawyer, Michael holds a law degree from the University of Constance, as well as a postgraduate LL.M. degree in international law and a Ph.D. in environmental law from the University of Helsinki. He is admitted to the bar in Germany. As a German and American citizen, he has lived for extended periods of time in Europe, the United States, and Latin America. He is a native speaker of German and English, fluent in Spanish, has good command of French and Portuguese, and knows basic Finnish. He splits his time between the Washington, DC area and Upstate New York, where he spends any free time revitalizing an antebellum farm and homestead.