🌻 mAY 2024

Hi everyone,

A brief “watch this space” plug. Over the coming weeks, I am going to share a series of communications to highlight the work that has been underway to strengthen and rebuild CATF, and to provide a forward look to what’s to come. 

These communications are a kind of “road to the retreat” warmup. I look forward to seeing you all in Montreal, building connections that will further our culture and our impact. I hope these notes to come will provide useful context and get thoughts flowing. 

As I briefly shared on the Watercooler this week there are three major themes I will be exploring: mission, organizational development, and financial sustainability (or, in plain English, money). My first introductory post will give a high-level overview of our efforts in these areas, followed by more in-depth pieces on each topic. 

We will be utilizing the new CATF Intranet to post and send the communications to you all. More on this important new resource from Ashley, below.  

Sincerely, 

Armond 

CATF Intranet

I want to celebrate and support an important step in our organizational development efforts, the launch of the CATF Intranet! As previewed on the watercooler, CATF’s Intranet will play a pivotal role in our efforts to make CATF as inclusive, collaborative, and transparent as possible. It will improve how we store, manage, and communicate critical organizational information, with an emphasis on transparency and ease of access.  

The Intranet is a direct result of staff feedback and is an opportunity to merge our existing software and digital organization methods into one user-friendly space. The Intranet will continue to evolve, and we will rely on staff feedback for any updates needed. 

Alongside helpful resources from HR, Operations, Project Management, IT, and the Communications Team, the CATF Intranet will host updates from our Leadership Team and the Future CATF Initiative. It will serve as a one-stop-shop for CATF information, without the need to search through your email inbox for important updates. 

I want to thank the team who worked collaboratively and diligently to develop and launch the site, Lindsey P., CJ, Scott, Jazzmyn, Kara, Theresa, and Bonnie!  

If you have any questions about the Intranet, please reach out to our Intranet Project Team at [email protected]. Stay tuned for more updates!

Sincerely, 

Ashley 

If last month’s newsletter got lost in your inbox, you can find a copy here. And if you have any comments, questions, or feedback, please reach out to Kara Hunt.

HR, Development, Project Management, IT, and Operations News & Updates

Human Resources

For a full list of current CATF staff, take a look at our staff directory. You can find your coworkers’ information by last name, team, or vertical.

Present Your Work!

Please sign up to present on your work at an all-staff watercooler! These presentations can range from overviews of your team’s work to deep dives into a specific solution, to an explanation of the policy landscape in a specific region, or anything else you think may be interesting to staff. They do not need to be long or formal. It’s all about sharing your expertise and work with the CATF community! The link to sign up can be found in the CATF Team General channel under the “Forms” tab, and please feel free to sign up well in advance of your planned presentation date. Watch a recording from this month's watercooler here.

new staff this month

Updates

As we approach the end of May, this is a kind reminder for all people managers to finalize and share their team members’ 2024 objectives by Friday, May 31st. These objectives are crucial for driving our mission forward and ensuring strategic alignment. Please send the objectives to [email protected], and please do not hesitate to reach out if you need any additional clarification.  

The People Team is also excited to meet all of you at the coming staff retreat! 

Development

new team member

The Development Team is thrilled to welcome Jill Mann as our new Development Associate. Jill will be focused on supporting the teams through organizing and implementing fundraising support activities, including maintenance of the donor database systems; processing all gift revenues; logging gifts and coding gift records; providing historical giving, queries, and reports in support of fundraising goals and objects; and the prompt processing and filing of donor acknowledgements. 

Project Management

The Project Management Resources Hub can be found on CATF’s new Intranet – scroll up to the very top (above the CATF logo) to find it. Stay tuned for new resources!  

If your team has any project management-related information/resource requests, please do not hesitate to ping Lindsey Popken on Teams, or email them at [email protected]. 

IT

IT is moving forward with our JAMF Endpoint Management deployment. Expect communication from the IT team after the staff retreat. 

Operations

We are approaching the time of year when more people are taking time off. Reminder: Set-up your email autoreply and add your time off to the Out of Office Calendar. 

Upcoming CATF Holidays

See here for the full holiday lists for all countries.

• Wednesday, June 12: Democracy Day (Nigeria)  
• Monday, June 15: Day of Arafat (United Arab Emirates)  
• Monday, June 17: Eidul-Adha (Ghana, Nigeria) 
• Monday, June 17: Eid al-Adha (United Arab Emirates) 
• Tuesday, June 18: Eid al-Adha (United Arab Emirates) 
• Wednesday, June 19: Juneteenth (United States)  
• Monday, June 24: Pentecost Monday (Greece) 

Events & Meetings

What's Happening at CATF? 

Find out more by viewing the 2024 Events Master Calendar

• Reminder: Please add your speaking engagement, sponsorship, exhibit, webinar, or CATF-hosted event or meeting to the calendar. All staff should have access. 
• To start planning a new event or meeting, please review the Intake Form and FAQ. This is required for any event/meeting where CATF has a hosting role.

Staff Retreat Updates

Visit the Retreat intranet site for updated information and make sure to attend a retreat briefing on either June 17 or 18. We’ll be releasing important updates leading up to the briefings. Every function, every program, and every region will take the stage at our retreat. Thank you to the many of you who’ve accepted our invitation to be part of the program. We’ll have lots of time for connecting with each other, learning about work across the organization, and ultimately, discovering how we’re stronger together. See you in Montreal! 

NEW! Do you have an internal or mission-focused project that has made a difference? Make a submission to the Retreat Achievement Gallery! This short form takes 5 minutes – we only need a couple of sentences.   

NEW! We’ve partnered with Passion for Paws for our wellness walk on Thursday morning to walk adoptable rescue pets. If you’d like to participate, or change your signup for Thursday morning, please do so in the link. 

Event Operations

Important Updates 

As the organization right fits its staffing and budgeting realities, the events team has made some important updates to its processes.  

• The Event Intake Form has been updated for efficiency and migrated to Monday.com. This is a requirement for any CATF-hosted (or co-hosted) external function – of any size, scope, scale, or format – and should be submitted with a minimum 12-week lead time. This lead time helps CATF manage its costs (travel being the biggest) while ensuring constituents have enough notice to attend, and our teams have enough time to craft exceptional experiences worth the investment. Thank you for your cooperation!   
• A funding source and budget must be identified as either included as part of your annual budget or a plan and approval for supplementary funding. This is meant to be inclusive of all costs associated with the function (including staff travel, lodging, meals, AV, rentals, etc.). A budget template is available here and linked in the intake form. 

Event Spotlight

Bridging the Gaps: Advancing Superhot Rock Energy   

This month, Clean Air Task Force and GEORG hosted a milestone moment in CATF’s work with superhot rock energy. On May 28, over 60 stakeholders gathered in Iceland for our Bridging the Gaps: Advancing Superhot Rock Energy workshop during the Iceland Geothermal Conference. CATF and other authors presented the findings and technical gaps uncovered in five flagship reports focused on the capabilities necessary to create power and industrial heat from superhot (>400C) rock formations worldwide. We were pleased to exceed our attendance goals, while utilizing experimental event design (charging a registration fee to recoup costs), and intentional outreach.  

Upcoming Events

⚠️ The events tracker is on Monday.com! View it here.

• June 4: Congressional Briefing (Washington, DC) 
• June 4-5: Geothermal Capitol Hill Day (Washington, DC) 
• June 5-8: Africa Meeting of Econometric Society (Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire) 
• June 6: IATA’s AGM (Dubai, UAE) 
• June 10-13: Methane Mitigation Global Summit (Austin, TX) 
• June 11-12: Hydrogen Americas (Washington, DC) 
• June 19: Poland’s Hydrogen Gambit: Charting the Path for Strategic Refresh (Virtual) 
• June 20: Laws in Order: An Inventory of State Renewable Energy Siting Policies (Virtual) 
• June 25-28: International Association for Energy Economics (Istanbul, Turkey) 
• June 25-28: CATF Staff Retreat (Montreal, Canada) 

Program & Regional Advocacy
Team Updates

Highlights

• The Methane Pollution Prevention team was hard at work this month advocating for methane emissions reductions in the oil and gas, waste, and agriculture sectors.  
  • Rebecca Tremain gave evidence at the UK House of Lords methane inquiry, highlighting how the UK government can take straightforward and cost-effective measures to tackle oil and gas methane emissions. Watch a clip from her testimony here.  
  • Rebecca Tremain, Théo Humann, and Jonathan Banks also traveled to the South of England to document methane pollution at onshore oil wells using an optical gas imaging camera. They found constant emissions at all sites surveyed, both from high polluting cold venting techniques and equipment leaks. Watch a video recap from their trip here. 
  • Théo Humann joined Legambiente in Italy to film methane emissions from oil and gas sites and saw in real-time how Leak Detection and Repaid (LDAR) can help stop methane pollution. While filming five methane leaks at a valve station, a local resident expressed concern and called the emergency number for the operator. Within minutes, the operator dispatched a professional to fix the methane leak by tightening the bolts on the piping system. Watch the video here. 
  • The team also hosted three national workshops on how to reduce waste sector emissions in Bogota, Mexico City, and Quito, supported by the Global Methane Hub. 
  • Mohammed Dahiru Aminu and Ioannis Binietoglou published a blog about CATF’s work in Africa using remote sensing tools to highlight the magnitude of the continent’s waste methane emission challenge.  
  • Fernanda Ferreira and David McCabe published a paper on the appropriate use of a fairly new metric known as GWP* and its shortcomings when used to analyze emissions from countries or sectors.
• The Superhot Rock team continued leading on the geothermal energy front, with Ann Garth speaking on a panel at the Geothermal Transition Summit. The team hosted a workshop in Iceland with other leading experts in the field, presenting the results of CATF’s landscaping and gap analysis research. 
• The Clean Energy Infrastructure Deployment team is co-writing a report on inventorying renewable energy siting policies in all 50 states and will host a webinar on its findings on June 20 at 1:00pm ET. 
  • Nicole Pavia and the Federal Policy team met with Senate and House staff to discuss CATF’s federal transmission permitting barriers report. 
  • Nicole also moderated a panel on regional collaboration for offshore wind transmission at an Atlantic Council transatlantic harmonization roundtable, which will inform an upcoming Atlantic Council report. 
• The Advanced Nuclear Energy team kicked off the month with a strategy session in Washington, DC, discussing recent themes, emerging opportunities, and priorities for 2024 and 2025. 
  • The team also made an extensive stakeholder engagement effort in Poland to learn more about key-barriers and challenges to nuclear deployment in Poland, showcasing CATF’s expertise on this topic. 
  • Tamara Lagurashvili engaged with stakeholders at the Carbon Free Europe and Ministry of Climate and Environment hosted NECP event in Warsaw. 
• Lily Odarno presented at the Accelerating Sustainable Development in Africa conference held in Cape Town, South Africa, exploring the role of nuclear power in driving economic growth in Africa. Lily was also a guest panelist at the Africa Climate Ambassadors’ Energy Transition Program, examining the opportunities and challenges of transforming Africa’s energy systems to meet global climate demands. 
• The European Advocacy team celebrated progress on two core issues – the EU Council formally adopted revised CO2 emission standards for heavy-duty vehicles, thanks to years of work from the EU Advocacy team, and the EU Council voted on the Hydrogen and Decarbonised Gas Market Package, reflecting CATF recommendations. 
• The Zero-Carbon Fuels Team continued to elevate CATF’s messaging on priority 45V issues, with Rachel Starr and Hagan Han sharing a series of 45V one pagers with Senate and House staff. Rachel and Sam Bailey also met with Senator Casey on 45V upstream methane alignment. 
  • Rachel spoke on an ARPA-E Summit panel during the student program about careers in energy for scientists, networking with various DOT and DOE offices as well as numerous innovative technology companies and start-ups. 
  • Ian Champ participated in a hydrogen panel focusing on clean hydrogen production and end-use planning in the Midwest region of the U.S. 
  • Alex Carr participated in a hydrogen panel at the 16th European Economic Congress in Katowice. Alex discussed the challenges for decarbonizing transport using hydrogen and the need to both prioritize hydrogen end use sectors in transportation and utilize a mix of decarbonization pathways for transportation. 
  • The team also participated in the FCA Cleantech Festival in Remscheid, presenting on the economics of low-carbon ammonia and methanol production and sharing findings from the hydrogen in power sector paper. 
  • The Zero-Carbon Fuels team is also working on an updated strategy plan on how industrial decarbonization overlaps with carbon management. 
• Carbon Capture engaged with multiple state and federal offices to discuss CCS policies and advance carbon management on the state and federal level. 
  • Ben Grove participated in a CCS panel hosted by the California Chamber of Commerce and Bay Area Council, speaking about CCS economics and potential co-benefits with a California lens. Following the panel, Ben attended a private roundtable dinner with California senators, assemblymembers, and the Governor’s office. 
  • Angie Seligman spoke on a GCSSI 2024 Americas Forum on Carbon Capture and Storage panel, presenting the criteria air pollutants report findings.  
  • John Thompson attended the first CEQ Federal Lands and Non-Federal Lands CCUS Permitting Task Force 
• Fusion Energy program experts will be a part of the ITER Private Sector Fusion Workshop to present the project on the development of Standards for Fusion. 
  • In April, the Fusion team held the CATF International Working Group on Fusion Safety Regulation meeting, hosting experts from the public and private sectors, academics, and experts from Europe and the U.S. The group formulated a harmonized framework for safety and regulation for commercial fusion energy that can be adopted internationally and enable the global deployment of fusion energy. 
• Armond Cohen co-authored a report series exploring how existing greenhouse gas accounting rules can be improved to enable companies to more accurately report emissions from purchased supply serving their electricity use and better assess and report the real-world emissions impacts from their actions. Read the reports here. 
• Join the Land Systems on June 13 at 11:00am ET for a presentation on Bioenergy Landscape Design by John Field of Oak Ridge National Laboratory – reach out to Zoe Jee for an invite! 
  • Codie Rossi, Rebecca Sanders-DeMott, and Alejandra Muñoz published a blog highlighting the key takeaways from the fourth meeting of the Carbon Removals Expert Group with Carbon Management 
• The Legal Team continued to defend critical climate policies by: 
  • Intervening to defend Light/Medium-Duty and Heavy-Duty Vehicle Rules in the D.C. Circuit. 
  • Preparing to intervene to defend updated Mercury and Air Toxics Rule, including drafting the motion to intervene and preparing client declarations. 
  • Defending EPA’s methane 111 rule, which establishes emissions standards for both new and existing oil and gas sources across the U.S., from challenges by industries and states led by West Virginia.

All program & advocacy updates →

Full List of Publications This Month

Blogs

• Accounting for carbon removals in the EU: Highlights from the 4th meeting of the Carbon Removals Expert Group – Codie Rossi, Rebecca Sanders-DeMott, Alejandra Muñoz Castañer 
• EPA delivers carbon emission reductions from power plants, but work remains – Frank Sturges, Paula Leverett Cobb 
• Funding announcement: DOE invests in carbon dioxide transport through CIFIA Future Growth Grants – Holly Reuter, Angela Seligman 
• How Europe can benefit from a promising clean energy source you’ve never heard of – Alessia Virone, Maja Pozvek, Sara Albares 
• From eyes in space to hands on the ground: Using remote sensing to mitigate methane emissions from Africa’s waste sector – Mohammed Dahiru Aminu, Ioannis Binietoglou 
• G7 leaders focus on climate options and energy security – Lee Beck 

Press Statements

• New Treasury guidance for awarding sustainable aviation fuel tax credits highlights need for more fuel-carrier options to decarbonize aviation  
• CATF applauds EPA’s stronger emissions reporting requirements for oil and gas operators 
• Transforming greenhouse gas accounting: CATF reports call for overhaul of GHG Protocol's Corporate Standard and Scope 2 Guidance 
• Colorado legislature passes crucial bill advancing renewable energy siting, helping state meet ambitious decarbonization goals 
• CATF applauds White House joint policy statement on voluntary carbon markets and calls for strict oversight 
• German Government amends law to enable CO₂ storage under the seabed and on land, improves capacity for industrial decarbonisation

Reports

• Modernizing GHG Accounting Rules and Climate Leadership Programs
• Focus on reducing methane pollution from all sources, not distractions over metrics 

Fact SHeets

• Hydrogen Blending - Not a serious decarbonization pathway 

Presentations

• U.S. perceptions of superhot rock energy in 2023 

Testimonies

• Clean Air Task Force Testimony on Colorado Siting Study Bill 

Comms Corner

New! Communications Resources for Staff Hub 

The Communications Resources for Staff hub can be found on CATF’s new Intranet at the top of the homepage. The hub includes helpful resources created by the Communications and Events teams, along with updates related to our communications and events processes. 

If you have any issues accessing the materials, please reach out to our Communications Associate Jazzmyn Davenport, [email protected]. 

CATF in the News

• As elections in the U.S., EU, and UK approach, Lee Beck highlighted the need to frame climate policies around economic benefits and energy security as a path to lasting change in The Washington Post. 
• Armond Cohen joined Neil Fisher of The NorthBridge Group and Roger Ballentine of Green Strategies with an op-ed in Utility Dive on how improvements to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s Corporate Standard and Scope 2 Guidance can help measure real progress and better align companies with science-based climate goals. 
• In Canary Media, Thomas Walker shared his insights on the different pathways available to decarbonize the global aviation industry, emphasizing the need for greater investment and policy support for solutions other than biofuels. 
• Toby Lockwood joined a Westwood Global Energy Group podcast episode on “Assessing the status of global CCUS policy”, discussing why we need carbon capture and storage to reach our climate targets and diving into the evolution of the EU’s policy framework in relation to carbon capture. 
• John Thompson continued to defend EPA’s power plant regulation in Politico, arguing that sulfur scrubber technology is an acceptable way to control pollution. Thompson also highlighted the importance of pursuing all the options available to meet the climate challenge in Cipher News. 
• The EU passed its first-ever law to cut down on methane emissions from the oil and gas industry, with CATF experts Brandon Locke and Alessia Virone highlighting the potential impact of the law on global methane emissions in Euronews and Reuters. 

View all press coverage →

Staff Pet Photo of the Month

Baloo and Choco were just one month old when they were found abandoned, malnourished, and frightened in a dirty box. Alex Muñoz and her partner heard that they might be euthanized due to a lack of space in the shelters. Without hesitation, they opened their home and hearts to these amazing animals in need. 
 
After a month of living with Alex, Baloo and Choco have made a full recovery. They are now joyful, loving, chubby little pups and ready for a second chance at life. 

The flexibility of CATF and working from home has made this experience possible. Alex is grateful to have been able to save these amazing and unconditional creatures. 
 
Alex is now seeking loving families to adopt Baloo and Choco in Spain. Soon, she’ll face the difficult task of saying, "Hasta luego, amigo." They will certainly miss their home filled with the puppies love and plenty of hair! :) 

If you have a pet you’d be willing to share, please submit a pet photo for the newsletter! You can do so by filling out this Teams Form.

That’s all for this month. If you made it this far — thanks for reading!