Counting Carbon's Cousin: Australia's Methane Story

Understanding Australia's methane budget is essential for anyone invested in climate action, sustainable development, or environmental policy. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, more impactful than carbon dioxide over the short term, and plays a critical role in our national emissions profile.

Given the recent announcement of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions reduction target, this new methane budget reveals where Australia's methane emissions are coming from, whether through human activities like agriculture and energy production, or natural processes such as wetlands and bushfires. By pinpointing the sources, you can make informed decisions, target effective reductions, and contribute meaningfully to Australia's emissions reduction goals.

Join CSIRO's Dr Pep Canadell, author of Australia's methane budget, in conversation with Professor Peter Rayner as they explore the key insights from the budget, including where Australia's methane hotspots are, and where opportunities lie to better understand and manage emissions.

Pricing

• Free

Dates and Times

Contact

Tanya Wilkins

More information

Speaker Profiles:

Dr Pep Canadell

Pep is a Chief Research Scientist in CSIRO Environment, Chief Lead Investigator in the Climate Systems Hub of the National Environmental Science Program, and the Executive Director of the Global Carbon Project, a global consortium of scientists under the umbrella of Future Earth and a scientific partner of the World Climate Research Programme.

Pep focuses on collaborative and highly integrative research to develop national, continental, and global budgets and trend analyses of the main greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. He also studies the size and vulnerability of Earth's carbon sinks and pools, carbon-climate feedbacks, and pathways to net-zero emissions, including land-based carbon sequestration and negative emissions. He has also focused on abrupt impacts and ecosystem collapse resulting from climate change, particularly due to wildfires. He uses a robust understanding of regional and global biogeochemical cycles to inform the formulation of sub-national, national, and international policy and actions to mitigate climate change.

Professor Peter Rayner

Professor Peter Rayner's research centres on estimating surface sources and sinks of CO2 using satellite and in-situ data combined with models to analyse CO2 release and uptake patterns, particularly in the tropics and Southern Hemisphere. He was awarded the Priestley Medal of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society in 2002, recognising his contributions to the field.

Professor Rayner has held research positions at leading institutions including the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Princeton University, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Monash University and the Laboratory for the Science of Climate and the Environment in France. He currently leads a team of senior academics and developers on the development of the methane emissions model for Open Methane.