As the sixth and final installment in our Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) webinar series, this webinar focused on policy levers that can help incentivize responsible CDR deployment to meet California’s net-zero goals. We examined how to secure high-quality CDR projects while safeguarding communities and the environment. Experts discussed important considerations for policymakers to ensure accountability while driving action, how to fund the work, and what policies or regulations will ensure CDR does not box out direct emission reductions. Additionally, speakers discussed how the state government and this nascent industry can collaborate to advance critical climate solutions.
During this webinar, we heard from representatives from the environmental justice community, an independent policy research group, and a former Department of Energy researcher and academic.
As the world navigates the necessary transition away from polluting fuels toward clean energy, most climate scientists acknowledge that we must also remove climate pollution that has already been dumped into the atmosphere.
The call for CDR grows stronger as new analyses find that the global community is not on track to meet the Paris Agreement targets for limiting carbon pollution in the atmosphere and keeping global average temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius. CDR is integrated into California’s plan to meet its 2030 and 2045 climate goals — the 2022 Scoping Plan from the Air Resources Board has a target of 7 million metric tons of CDR by 2030, and 75 million metric tons of CDR by 2045.
This six-part webinar series on carbon dioxide removal explored the science, strategies, and policies of CDR. The series facilitated co-learning between stakeholders, addressed knowledge gaps, and emphasized the importance of engaging, protecting, and benefiting local communities with any proposed CDR project.
Eric O’Rear’s areas of expertise include energy/environmental policy analysis, energy system modeling, as well as building sustainability and resilience. Prior to joining Rhodium, Eric was a Lead Economist with the MITRE Corporation, where he conducted economic research for a wide range of federal sponsors. Before that, he worked as a Research Economist in the Applied Economics Office at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where he assisted in the development of tools capable of gauging the sustainable performance of U.S. residential and commercial buildings. Eric has a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, and a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics with a specialty in Energy and Natural Resource Economics from Purdue University.
Project Director and Clinical Supervising Attorney·Emmett Institute on Climate Change & the Environment
Sabrina Ashjian is a project director and clinical supervising attorney for the Emmett Institute on Climate Change & the Environment and the California Environmental Legislation & Policy Clinic at UCLA School of Law. She previously was with the Environmental Law Clinic at UC Berkeley School of Law where she taught environmental justice and legislation courses. Prior to that she advanced animal welfare legislation as California State Director of the Humane Society of the United States. She has served as an environmental crimes prosecutor and began her career as a public defender.
Senior Attorney at the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment
Dan Ress, a graduate of the University of Colorado Law School, is a senior attorney at the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, where they provide technical and policy assistance to low-income communities of color in the San Joaquin Valley. Their work focuses on California state climate justice policy, especially oil and gas, carbon management, and carbon markets. Working in coalition, Dan helped pass SB 1137 (Gonzalez 2022), which will end neighborhood oil and gas drilling, and helped enact key legislative community protections for carbon capture, use, and storage (CCUS), including a prohibition on using captured carbon for enhanced oil recovery, a moratorium on carbon pipelines, and a requirement for CARB to ensure that carbon capture and removal project operators minimize to the maximum extent technologically feasible all co-pollutant emissions. Dan is also advocating for legislative changes to CARB’s Cap-and-Trade program and Low Carbon Fuel Standard.
Dr. Emily Grubert
Associate Professor of Sustainable Energy Policy, and, concurrently, of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences at the University of Notre Dame
Dr. Emily Grubert is Associate Professor of Sustainable Energy Policy, and, concurrently, of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences at the University of Notre Dame. A civil engineer and environmental sociologist, her research focuses on justice-oriented deep decarbonization and decision support tools related to large infrastructure systems, with emphasis on evaluation of dynamic life cycle socioenvironmental impacts and the effects of different value systems on decision pathways. Grubert holds a Ph.D. in Environment and Resources from Stanford University.
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