Event Details:
Dr. Robert Kleinberg of Columbia University and Boston University speaks to the Methane Emissions Technology Alliance on the limitations of global warming potential as a tool for informing policy.
Abstract
The Global Warming Potential (GWP) is widely used to compare the climate change effects of various greenhouse gases. Although GWP has an established role in international climate agreements, GWP does not describe any specific identifiable impact of greenhouse gas emissions on climate. It is argued here that GWP is unphysical, unintuitive, arbitrary, ignores the time dependence of emission sources, and is in some cases misleading. Therefore it has no place in describing the effects of climate change mitigation strategies beyond a 20 year horizon. This paper argues for the broader use of global mean temperature change trajectories in educating policy makers and the public about greenhouse gas control, thereby making climate policy discussions more scientifically rigorous while demystifying the criteria upon which policy choices are made.
Bio
Robert L. Kleinberg is Senior Research Scholar at the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy, and Senior Fellow at the Boston University Institute for Sustainable Energy. His current interests include energy technology and economics, and environmental and regulatory issues associated with the oil and gas industry. From 1980 to 2018 Dr. Kleinberg was employed by Schlumberger, the premier oilfield service company, attaining the rank of Schlumberger Fellow, one of about a dozen to have held this rank in a workforce of 100,000. From 1978 to 1980 he was a post-doctoral fellow at the Exxon Corporate Research Laboratory. Dr. Kleinberg was educated at the University of California, Berkeley (B.S. Chemistry, 1971) and the University of California, San Diego (Ph.D. Physics, 1978). Dr. Kleinberg has authored more than 120 academic and professional papers, holds 41 U.S. patents, and has invented several geophysical instruments that have been commercialized on a worldwide basis. Dr. Kleinberg is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and serves on the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.