2°Celsius

Episode 6: Mitigation: How Do You Solve a Problem like Methane?

So if methane is this big a problem, what tools do we have, and are we using, to solve it? The first global agreement that methane was a problem came in the form of the Global Methane Pledge announced at COP26 at Glasgow in 2021. What’s happened since then, especially in the industry with the easiest to abate emissions: oil and gas? We look at the International Methane Emissions Observatory, the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership, the new EU regulation on methane and proposals for financial instruments to help bring emissions down. Host:  The show is presented by: Francesca Fazey Affiliation: The show is brought to you by: The 2Celsius Association [https://2celsius.org/en/] Contributors: Raul Cazan, Founder of The 2Celsius Association, Bucharest, Romania Kim O’Dowd, Campaigner at The Environmental Investigation Agency, London, UK Dr Roland Kupers, Global Advisor to the United Nations Environment Programme’s International Methane Emissions Observatory, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Deborah Gordon, Senior Fellow, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University; Senior Principal at the Rocky Mountain Institute’s (RMI) Climate Intelligence Program, Washington DC, USA Dr Philippe Ciais, Associate Director, Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace (IPSL), Paris, France Théophile Humann-Guilleminot, Campaign Manager, Clean Air Task Force ,Athens Greece Dr Dave Lowry, Reader: Stable Isotope and Greenhouse Gas, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Royal Holloway, London UK Dr Rebecca Fisher: Reader: Atmospheric Methane, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Royal Holloway, London UK Dr Thoman Roeckmann, Professor of Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry, Utrecht University, The Netherlands Professor Jonathan Stern, Distinguished Research Fellow, The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, Oxford, UK Melanie Kenderdine, Principal, Energy Futures Initiative, Washington DC, USA

Episode 5: Is Natural Gas Clean or Are We Being Gaslit?

Natural gas is the ideal bridge fuel to support the global energy transition, or so the story goes. But what about methane emissions? Environmentalists want us to throw it on the pile of the other fossil fuels and doom it to the past. The energy community says: Not so fast. Where are we on our energy transition journey when it comes to natural gas and if we’re going to invest in it going forward, what are the implications of the methane problem for our chosen direction to a renewable future? Contributors: Raul Cazan, Founder of The 2Celsius Association, Bucharest, Romania Kim O’Dowd, Campaigner at The Environmental Investigation Agency, London, UK Dr Roland Kupers, Global Advisor to the United Nations Environment Programme’s International Methane Emissions Observatory, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Deborah Gordon, Senior Fellow, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University; Senior Principal at the Rocky Mountain Institute’s (RMI) Climate Intelligence Program, Washington DC, USA Dr Philippe Ciais, Associate Director, Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace (IPSL), Paris, France Théophile Humann-Guilleminot, Campaign Manager, Clean Air Task Force ,Athens Greece Dr Dave Lowry, Reader: Stable Isotope and Greenhouse Gas, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Royal Holloway, London UK Dr Rebecca Fisher: Reader: Atmospheric Methane, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Royal Holloway, London UK Dr Thoman Roeckmann, Professor of Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry, Utrecht University, The Netherlands Professor Jonathan Stern, Distinguished Research Fellow, The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, Oxford, UK Melanie Kenderdine, Principal, Energy Futures Initiative, Washington DC, USA

Episode 4: Unravelling nature’s methane: The threat of methane climate feedbacks

Manmade methane emissions pose a potent threat to the climate, but they aren’t emitted into a vacuum. They feed into the earth’s existing complex cycle of methane, and as much as half the methane that reaches the atmosphere every year comes from natural sources. The most crucial of these is wetlands, and in addition to generating methane, they pose a potentially bigger danger: climate change feedbacks. You may have heard of the most famous: the threat of a huge methane release from the world’s permafrost regions. But it turns out the story might be more complex than we thought, and wetlands in tropical regions may constitute the read danger to watch… Host:  The show is presented by: Francesca Fazey Affiliation: The show is brought to you by: The 2Celsius Association [https://2celsius.org/en/]  Contributors: Raul Cazan, Founder of The 2Celsius Association, Bucharest, Romania Kim O’Dowd, Campaigner at The Environmental Investigation Agency, London, UK Dr Roland Kupers, Global Advisor to the United Nations Environment Programme’s International Methane Emissions Observatory, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Deborah Gordon, Senior Fellow, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University; Senior Principal at the Rocky Mountain Institute’s (RMI) Climate Intelligence Program, Washington DC, USA Dr Philippe Ciais, Associate Director, Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace (IPSL), Paris, France Théophile Humann-Guilleminot, Campaign Manager, Clean Air Task Force ,Athens Greece Dr Dave Lowry, Reader: Stable Isotope and Greenhouse Gas, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Royal Holloway, London UK Dr Rebecca Fisher: Reader: Atmospheric Methane, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Royal Holloway, London UK

Episode 3: Methane Detectives: Making the Invisible Visible

In this episode, we introduce our listeners to some of the world’s methane hunters, environmental detectives who use cutting-edge technology to detect and quantify methane emissions, making an invisible gas, visible. We embark on a methane hunting expedition of our own and talk to the coordinator of one of the world’s largest methane studies on the difference between estimated and measured emissions in the oil and gas sector. Host:  The show is presented by: Francesca Fazey Affiliation: The show is brought to you by: The 2Celsius Association [https://2celsius.org/en/] Contributors: Raul Cazan, Founder of The 2Celsius Association, Bucharest, Romania Kim O’Dowd, Campaigner at The Environmental Investigation Agency, London, UK Dr Roland Kupers, Global Advisor to the United Nations Environment Programme’s International Methane Emissions Observatory, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Deborah Gordon, Senior Fellow, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University; Senior Principal at the Rocky Mountain Institute’s (RMI) Climate Intelligence Program, Washington DC, USA Dr Philippe Ciais, Associate Director, Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace (IPSL), Paris, France Théophile Humann-Guilleminot, Campaign Manager, Clean Air Task Force ,Athens Greece Dr Dave Lowry, Reader: Stable Isotope and Greenhouse Gas, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Royal Holloway, London UK Dr Rebecca Fisher: Reader: Atmospheric Methane, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Royal Holloway, London UK Dr Thoman Roeckmann, Professor of Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry, Utrecht University, The Netherlands Professor Jonathan Stern, Distinguished Research Fellow, The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, Oxford, UK Melanie Kenderdine, Principal, Energy Futures Initiative, Washington DC, USA

Episode 2: So, Where’s It All Coming From?

In this second episode of our podcast, we delve into the complex world of methane emission sources. Join us as we look at the five main sectors that emit methane, unpack how the main ingredient of natural gas is also emitted by cow burps and get a taste of how scientists tease apart the difference. We’ll also touch on why so much emphasis is placed on the emissions from oil and gas. Host:  The show is presented by: Francesca Fazey Affiliation: The show is brought to you by: The 2Celsius Association [https://2celsius.org/en/] Contributors: Raul Cazan, Founder of The 2Celsius Association, Bucharest, Romania Kim O’Dowd, Campaigner at The Environmental Investigation Agency, London, UK Dr Roland Kupers, Global Advisor to the United Nations Environment Programme’s International Methane Emissions Observatory, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Deborah Gordon, Senior Fellow, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University; Senior Principal at the Rocky Mountain Institute’s (RMI) Climate Intelligence Program, Washington DC, USA Dr Philippe Ciais, Associate Director, Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace (IPSL), Paris, France Théophile Humann-Guilleminot, Campaign Manager, Clean Air Task Force ,Athens Greece Dr Dave Lowry, Reader: Stable Isotope and Greenhouse Gas, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Royal Holloway, London UK Dr Rebecca Fisher: Reader: Atmospheric Methane, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Royal Holloway, London UK Dr Thoman Roeckmann, Professor of Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry, Utrecht University, The Netherlands Professor Jonathan Stern, Distinguished Research Fellow, The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, Oxford, UK Melanie Kenderdine, Principal, Energy Futures Initiative, Washington DC,