Richard Heede

Richard Heede leads Climate Accountability Institute’s disruptive “Carbon Majors” project that traces carbon dioxide emissions to the largest corporations that produce and market carbon fuels worldwide. The initial work was published in Climatic Change in 2013 with a lead story in The Guardian. Richard has analyzed potential emissions from oil, gas, and coal companies’ proven reserves vis-à-vis the remaining carbon budget. He and colleagues are modeling the temperature and sea level rise attributable to major carbon producers (in press), and is investigating how a responsible oil and gas company can align production and investment objectives with the ≤2°C pathway of the Paris Accord. CAI was founded in 2011 to provide the scientific basis for leveraging climate stewardship by oil, gas, and coal producers. Richard published his thesis A Geography of Carbon with NCAR in 1984, worked on energy efficiency and climate mitigation with Rocky Mountain Institute 1984-2001, and consulted on corporate, municipal, & agency emission inventories with Climate Mitigation Services 2001-2011.