Full Title: New Climate Tools for Financial Institutions: Methane Data Transparency for Targeted Investments
Author(s): Deborah Gordon, Evan Kornbluh, Michael Huffman, Estefanía Marchán, and TJ Conway
Publisher(s): Rocky Mountain Institute
Publication Date: November 30, 2023
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Banks and other financial institutions (FIs) have an opportunity to leverage emissions models and detection and measurement technologies to inform near-term investment decisions that reduce methane in their energy portfolios. This is part of FIs’ broader strategy to transition oil and gas portfolios in line with climate goals. Methane is a highly potent greenhouse gas (GHG) that is routinely emitted by the oil and gas industry, which accounts for an estimated one-half of their corporate GHG emissions. Yet, equivalent barrels of oil and gas have wide-ranging methane emissions. Combining asset-level emissions modeling — using publicly available, peer-reviewed tools such as RMI’s Oil Climate Index plus Gas (OCI+) — with top-down emissions detection via satellites and aircraft offers climate intelligence to pinpoint methane hot spots and mitigate leakage.