The Salata Institute Launches Initiative to Reduce Global Methane Emissions

The initiative’s objectives are to build on new scientific research on measurement and attribution of emissions; understand legal, regulatory, and political opportunities and constraints to methane-emissions reductions in the United States and in some other countries; design policies that might best contribute to methane-emissions reduction; work effectively through existing international venues, such as the Global Methane Pledge; and define roles that business – and international and multilateral organizations – can play in these efforts.

The intellectual landscape across the disciplines addressed by the methane cluster’s seventeen participating faculty members is exceptionally diverse. These faculty are based in four departments in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and in five Harvard professional schools. They approach methane-emissions reduction through the disciplinary lenses of natural science, engineering, economics, political science, history, law, business, and policy studies.

The methane initiative will achieve its goals primarily through focused research projects, each conducted by two or more Harvard faculty members. Faculty members within a particular project are, in most cases, from different disciplines and Harvard schools. The six projects being pursued in the first year of the initiative are described below. Additional research projects will be identified in the future for the subsequent years of this three-year initiative. The full group of seventeen faculty will also meet regularly and communicate electronically to exchange insights and identify synergies across (and beyond) projects.

The organization and management of the initiative will ensure that faculty communicate and collaborate across disciplinary and institutional boundaries to support real action to reduce methane emissions. Indeed, this carefully designed structure will ensure that this a truly end-to-end initiative, from natural science to policy and action, to reduce methane emissions – that the whole of the initiative will be greater than the sum of its parts, with regard to both knowledge-generation and impact.

Robert Stavins, A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development at Harvard Kennedy School, is Principal Investigator of the methane initiative. Information on the sixteen other faculty members is included below. Robert Stowe serves as Executive Director of the Initiative, and – working with Stavins – coordinates all activities of the Initiative and its constituent research projects.

The methane initiative is one of five ambitious, interdisciplinary climate change research clusters currently supported by the Salata Institute. The other clusters address corporate net-zero targets, climate adaptation in South Asia, climate adaptation in the Gulf of Guinea, and approaches to strengthening communities through equitable and locally-driven energy development.

Research Projects Supported by the Methane Initiative in Academic Year 2023-2024

Using Satellite Observations of Atmospheric Methane to Serve U.S. Reporting and Regulatory Needs

• Daniel Jacob: Vasco McCoy Family Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Environmental Engineering, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science and Harvard University Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
• Carrie Jenks: Executive Director, Environmental and Energy Law Program, Harvard Law School

The project’s goal is to increase the value of satellite observations of atmospheric methane for reporting and regulation of methane emissions in the United States. In particular, Jacob, Jenks, and their teams: (1) seek to improve reporting of methane emissions from landfills under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program; (2) develop a near-real-time satellite-based monitoring system for verification of emission reductions and quantification of methane intensities.

The Economic Costs of Reducing Methane Emissions

• Joseph Aldy: Professor of the Practice of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
• Forest Reinhardt: John D. Black Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
• Robert Stavins: A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development, Harvard Kennedy School

The project seeks to identify opportunities for applying empirical methods to improve cost estimates, as well as policy instruments for transferring emissions-control responsibilities from one emissions-source category to another (to reduce aggregate abatement costs). In pursuit of this goal, Aldy, Reinhardt, and Stavins are reviewing literature and advancing research on three types of cost estimates: Engineering cost estimates, econometrically-estimated measures of costs, and costs revealed through public policies in the United States.

Regulatory Obstacles and Opportunities for Well-Capping in Pennsylvania

• Stephen Ansolabehere: Frank G. Thompson Professor of Government, Harvard University Department of Government
• Carrie Jenks: Executive Director, Environmental and Energy Law Program, Harvard Law School
• Dustin Tingley: Professor of Government, Harvard University Department of Government

This project will convene major stakeholders in western Pennsylvania to discuss ways to address regulatory and economic obstacles to capping natural gas wells that are no longer producing – of which there are at least 400,000 in the area. The objectives of the workshop are to clarify the issues and challenges faced and to develop a blueprint for regulatory and legislative action. Participants will include state regulators, state legislators, current well owners and operators, land owners, community leaders, and experts in emissions and well-capping. Participating Harvard faculty and their teams will consider implications of their findings for other regions of the United States and for other segments of the oil and gas industry.

Arctic Methane Emissions and Climate Mitigation

• James Hammitt: Professor of Economics and Decision Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
• John Holdren: Teresa and John Heinz Research Professor of Environmental Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

The project investigates quantitatively the economic value of narrowing uncertainty about future emissions of methane from thawing permafrost, as a function of how rapidly that narrowing can be accomplished. The work will draw in part on findings from ongoing work on monitoring and modeling emissions from permafrost thaw, both at the Salata Institute and in the TED/Audacious-funded Permafrost Pathways Project, whose component at Harvard Kennedy School is directed by John Holdren.

Using Remote Sensing Data to Inform Micro-Histories of Methane-Release Sites

• Emma Rothschild: Jeremy and Jane Knowles Professor of History, Harvard University Department of History
• Steven Wofsy: A.L. Rotch Professor of Atmospheric and Environmental Science, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science and Harvard University Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences

The project seeks to juxtapose micro-histories of the sites of methane emissions with the extraordinary potential of satellite and aircraft imaging. Its object is to understand what has been happening in locations that are of central importance to global greenhouse gas emissions, and to understand more about how emissions of methane can be reduced, including the social context. The focus will be on the upcoming flights of the new MethaneAIR remote sensing instrument for measuring methane concentrations along broad swaths of the landscape with very fine spatial resolution and high precision.

International Cooperation to Reduce Methane Emissions

• Robert Stavins: A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development, Harvard Kennedy School
• Robert Stowe: Co-Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements

The project characterizes the complex landscape of international cooperation to reduce methane emissions and develop recommendations on how international cooperation might be advanced within a diffuse institutional framework. The project may proceed to address in depth: the interaction of trade policy (including with regard to natural gas) and efforts to reduce methane emissions; how large-emitting countries, including China, might advance efforts to abate, in part through international cooperation; and the potential role of cooperation with regard to the development and deployment of abatement technology.

Participating Faculty Advising Projects

A number of other Harvard faculty members are participating in the methane initiative but not affiliated with the specific projects listed above. They are advising these projects and the larger initiative, as their expertise warrants, and may direct new projects in subsequent years of the initiative. These are:

• Jody Freeman: Archibald Cox Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
• Jeffry Frieden: Professor of Government, Harvard University Department of Government
• Richard Lazarus: Howard and Katherine Aibel Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
• Meghan O’Sullivan: Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
• Michael Toffel: Senator John Heinz Professor of Environmental Management, Harvard Business School

External Collaborators

Finally, the Harvard Methane Initiative has formally engaged several experts from other universities and organizations as External Collaborators:

• Mark Brownstein: Senior Vice President of Energy Transition, Environmental Defense Fund
• Nathaniel Hendren: Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Catherine Wolfram: William Barton Rogers Professor of Energy Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Potential Collaborating Organizations

In preliminary work in spring 2023, the methane initiative has been in communication with the following organizations that focus on reducing methane emissions. The initiative’s leadership expects to collaborate more actively with some of these over the course of the initiative’s three-year program.

• Aiming for Zero Methane Emissions Initiative, Oil & Gas Climate Initiative
• Clean Air Task Force
• Climate Change Group, World Bank Group
• Energy Emissions Modeling and Data Lab (focusing on methane); a collaboration of the University of Texas – Austin, Colorado State University, and the Colorado School of Mines
• Environmental Defense Fund
• International Methane Emissions Observatory, U.N Environment Programme
• Office of the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate
• Resources for the Future