Highlighted Work

Tracking U.S. emissions of sulfuryl fluoride, a potent greenhouse gas 

• We used atmospheric measurements of sulfuryl fluoride from the NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory to map out where the largest emissions in the U.S. were coming from.

• We saw the largest emissions from California, and especially southern California, where sulfuryl fluoride is used as a fumigant for drywood termites and agricultural products. 

• This is significant because sulfuryl fluoride is a long-lived greenhouse gas (GHG), ~5000 times more potent than CO2 per ton, yet it is not included in California state or national GHG inventories. 

• Our work makes a case for including sulfuryl fluoride in future GHG emissions inventories and accounting protocol, and for considering alternative pest control methods to curb global sulfuryl fluoride emissions. 

• Read our paper here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01294-x (Gaeta et al., 2024)

Building a Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory for the City of Baltimore

• The Johns Hopkins Greenhouse Gas Research Group partnered with the Baltimore Office of Sustainability to build a GHG emissions inventory for Baltimore. 

• We calculated city-wide Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions using the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories (GPC) guide. 

• We estimated emissions for years 2017 through 2020, as well as for the baseline year 2007 (when the city first commited to GHG emissions reductions). 

• We found that while Baltimore had made significant progress towards GHG emissions reductions, additional decarbonaization efforts will be required for the city to hit it's net-zero GHG emissions by 2045 target. 

• Our GHG inventory was used for GHG emissions reporting to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), LEED for Cities and Communities, and ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability. It is also being used to inform sustainability decisions and GHG emissions targets in the Baltimore Climate Action Plan. 

Stay tuned for more updates!