Daphne Wysham is the Chief Executive Officer of Methane Action. Starting in early 2021, in response to the methane emergency, she and her team at Methane Action campaigned for the need to curb rapidly rising sources of methane, a climate super-pollutant, via a just, binding global methane agreement. Such an agreement would require deeper reductions than the current Global Methane Pledge, announced in November 2021, under which over 150 nations agreeing to voluntarily curb their methane emissions by 30% below 2020 levels by 2030. The global methane agreement Methane Action advocates would far exceed those targets, which could be reached by scaling up innovative ways of of suppressing methane formation and eradicating methane emissions near their source, and which would return atmospheric methane concentrations to safe levels.
Daphne is also a fellow at the Center for Sustainable Economy (CSE) where, together with CSE’s chief economist, John Talberth, she pioneered a new policy that is forcing the polluter to pay for the risks now externalized on frontline communities, the public sector and the climate, “fossil fuel risk bonds.” They’re an effective tool to make the fossil fuel companies pay for the externalized risks and costs of their methane emissions and other pollution, including climate impacts, which are currently borne by by frontline communities and the public. Fossil fuel risk bonds have been adopted in Multnomah County, OR, and King County, WA, and by several presidential campaign platforms, and are under consideration in other jurisdictions and Congress.
Prior to co-founding Methane Action and working with CSE, Daphne spent 20 years as a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in Washington, DC, where she founded and directed IPS’s climate justice program and served on the executive committee of the IPS board of directors. Her team’s groundbreaking research drew attention to disproportionate fossil fuel investments by the World Bank and other international financial institutions, prompting leaders including former Vice President Al Gore and members of the US House and Senate to call for reforms. Ultimately the World Bank phased out its fossil fuel lending. Daphne also co-founded the Durban Group for Climate Justice.
She serves on the board of Friends of the Earth-Nigeria. Born and raised in India and the Pacific Northwest, she is a graduate of Princeton University. Some of her research and publications can be found here.
Follow her on Blue Sky Social and on LinkedIn here.