Join us for a webinar about tackling methane emissions.
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About this Event
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that is more potent than carbon dioxide at heating our atmosphere. Reducing methane emissions – with methods including plugging abandoned and orphaned oil and gas wells, improving agricultural practices, reducing food waste, capturing methane from landfills and coal mines, and repairing leaks in oil and gas infrastructure – is critical, but these efforts alone may not be enough. As a result, scientists have begun exploring ways to remove methane directly from the air.
Gabrielle Dreyfus (Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development) moderated a conversation between Deborah Gordon (RMI) and Hinsby Cadillo-Quiroz (Arizona State University) on why methane removal is being considered as part of the portfolio of strategies to manage methane, the different mitigation and methane removal approaches being explored, and challenges associated with advancing these solutions.
Climate Conversations: Pathways to Action is a monthly webinar series from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that aims to convene high-level, cross-cutting, nonpartisan conversations about issues relevant to policy action on climate change.
Participant Bios
Gabrielle Dreyfus is a Chief Scientist at the Institute of Governance & Sustainable Development working at the interface of science and policy to advance knowledge and action to slow warming in the near and long-term. She chaired the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Committee on Atmospheric Methane Removal: Development of a Research Agenda and is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.
Deborah Gordon is a Senior Principal at RMI and a methane emissions expert who began her career as a chemical engineer in the oil industry and has worked in the public and nonprofit sectors as an energy and climate policy analyst. In addition to leading RMI’s oil and gas climate initiative, she serves as a senior fellow at the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs at Brown University. Gordon’s research spearheaded the development of the Oil Climate Index plus Gas (OCI+)- a first-of-its-kind analytic tool that compares the life-cycle climate impact of global oil and gas resources- which is the topic of her book, No Standard Oil (Oxford University Press, 2022 and due out in paperback, 2025).
Hinsby Cadillo-Quiroz is an Associate Professor at Arizona State University with a dual appointment in the School of Life Sciences and Biodesign Institute and leads the Ecology of Microorganisms and Ecosystems laboratory. His expertise spans the microbial physiology of methanogens and methanotrophs, ecosystem studies of methane emissions, as well as collaborations on landscape-level assessments of atmospheric methane. Cadillo-Quiroz’s current research focuses on methane production, consumption, and possible management questions including microbial interaction tests with pure cultures, small to medium scale bioreactors, as well as environmental studies of landfills, northern forest, and tropical peatlands in the Amazon Basin. He has been recognized with a Fulbright Scholarship, a Presidential Scholarship at Cornell University, a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and an Honorific Doctorate in Forestry by the National University of the Peruvian Amazon. Cadillo-Quiroz received a B.S. in biology and microbiology from Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Peru and a Ph.D. in microbiology with a minor in ecology from Cornell University.
