Southeastern professor to serve as member of the Science Advisory Group of the Governor's Climate Initiative Task Force
Friday, November 20, 2020
by: Tonya Lowentritt 
SOUTHEASTERN PROFESSOR TO SERVE AS MEMBER OF SCIENCE ADVISORY GROUP OF GOVERNOR’S CLIMATE INITIATIVES TASK FORCE - Southeastern Professor of Organic Chemistry Jean Fotie has been appointed to serve as a member of the Science Advisory Group of the Governor’s Climate Initiatives Task Force. The role of the Science Advisory Group is to support the Climate Initiatives Task Force by developing fundamental objectives and rubrics for evaluating the impacts of potential solutions, and to ensure that the proposed strategies are based on sound science and engineering.
HAMMOND – Southeastern Professor of Organic Chemistry Jean Fotie has been appointed
to serve as a member of the Science Advisory Group of the Governor’s Climate Initiatives
Task Force.
Governor Edwards recently kicked off a Climate Initiatives Task Force to look
at the best ways to “reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the state, with the objective
of mitigating the worst impacts of climate change on our natural and cultural heritage
while adapting our economy to maintain our position as a world leader in energy, industry,
agriculture, and transportation.”
The vision is for Louisiana to be able to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions
by 26-28% of 2005 levels by 2025, by about 40-50% of 2005 levels by 2030, and to net
zero greenhouse gas emission by 2050.
“As a coastal state, Louisiana is among the areas where one can witness, almost
daily, the increasing severe effects of climate change on our environment and on our
way of life,” Fotie said. “In recent years, our research group has developed a deep
interest in finding new ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without impairing
economic viability. As such, it is an honor to be able to contribute, even in the
smallest of ways, to the state’s climate vision for the next decades.”
The role of the Science Advisory Group is to support the Climate Initiatives
Task Force by developing fundamental objectives and rubrics for evaluating the impacts
of potential solutions, and to ensure that the proposed strategies are based on sound
science and engineering.
Fotie recently received a $265,000 grant from the National Science Foundation
to develop greener and sustainable catalytic methods for the reductive functionalization
of carbon dioxide (CO2).
