Daniel J. Metzger

Daniel Metzger is the Director of the Cities Climate Law Initiative at the Sabin Center and an Associate Research Scholar at Columbia Law School. His work explores legal tools that cities and other local governments are using to achieve their climate mitigation and adaptation goals. In addition to his academic work on cities climate law, Dan consults directly with city legal departments, sustainability offices, partner organizations, and the networks that link them together to provide research, resources, and analysis addressing the legal questions that shape the urban climate transition. 

Dan joined the Sabin Center in 2023 as a Smart Surfaces Fellow, focusing on legal issues raised by reflective roofs and pavements, porous pavements, green roofs, solar PV, trees, and more at the metropolitan and community level. Prior to that role, Dan advocated for the just transition to renewable electricity generation in the Southeast as a litigator with the Southern Environmental Law Center. He was previously a Climate Law Fellow at the Sabin Center, an associate at a litigation boutique, and a judicial clerk in the Eastern District of New York. Dan graduated from Vanderbilt Law School, where he was the Executive Editor of the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law and a member of the Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review. He also completed a master’s degree in natural resource management at Iceland’s University Centre of the Westfjords. He has served on environmental law committees for the American Bar Association and the New York City Bar Association.