Professor Sir David King is Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, Chair of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group,(CCAG) and Founder of the Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge.
He served as the UK Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser (2000–2007), the Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative on Climate Change (2013–2017), and Chair of Future Cities Catapult (2012–2016). Earlier roles include Head of the Department of Chemistry at Cambridge (1993–2000), Master of Downing College (1995–2000), and Founding Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at Oxford (2008–2012).
A leading climate diplomat, Sir David has travelled widely to build international consensus on urgent climate action. He spearheaded pioneering risk-analysis collaborations with China and India and co-founded Mission Innovation, a £23bn global initiative involving 22 countries and the European Commission to accelerate clean energy technologies.
A Fellow of the Royal Society, he was knighted in 2003, awarded the Légion d’honneur in 2009, and received the 2022 AAAS Award for Science Diplomacy.