Columbia World Projects (CWP) on Friday published a report on its Forum on decarbonization and announced the projects on the topic that CWP will develop for possible implementation.

The report outlines a September 2019 Forum meeting organized by CWP to discuss and analyze major challenges in decarbonization and to identify projects that CWP could implement to address these issues. The meeting was the sixth Forum held by Columbia World Projects. Fora bring together experts with a variety of backgrounds from inside and outside the university to identify how Columbia’s unique expertise can address fundamental challenges. Participants in Fora are asked to generate ideas for projects that CWP could implement that would partner Columbia faculty with practitioners in government, nongovernmental and international organizations, and the private sector, and have a measurable impact on people’s lives within five years.

The report describes the project proposals that participants submitted to the Forum and the feedback they received from fellow experts during the meeting. It also outlines the projects that received the greatest support from participants for further development by CWP. The projects outlined in the report that are currently in development are:

Offshore Storage of Billions of Metric Tons of Carbon Dioxide

This project would pilot a new technical method for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it as a harmless solid in basalt rock, which is found in the sea floor around the world.

Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS): A Negative Emission Technology

This project would develop and test a modular, mass-producible reactor system that directly converts certain types of biomass from the ocean (such as seaweed or brine algae) into hydrogen-enabled clean energy. 

Reducing Methane Emissions

This project would partner with oil and gas companies, the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, and the Environmental Defense Fund to raise awareness among stakeholders (policymakers, industry, investors, and others) about the significant impact of methane emissions on global warming. The project would use new satellite technology, along with other available data, to establish credible metrics for tracking and measuring methane emissions by the oil and gas industry.

Reducing the Carbon Footprint of Consumer Products

This project would partner with, among others, the Colgate-Palmolive Company to pilot a new data science-based approach for assessing and reducing the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the design, manufacture and distribution of consumer products.

Columbia World Projects staff are currently working with each project team to further develop the projects, taking into account the recommendations from Forum participants and the CWP Advisory Committee. This includes defining major deliverables, a precise timeline for implementation, a funding plan, a set of performance indicators for monitoring and evaluation, and the key implementing partners – all of which will be synthesized in a project design report. Based on these reports which are shared with the CWP President’s Council and Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger, a final decision will be made on which projects CWP will implement.