Renaud is among the most knowledgeable scientists in the world on innovative climate interventions. He served for more than two years as Science Advisor to Methane Action. Born in Mexico City, Renaud has lived in France since 1973 and received his PhD. in 1989 from University of Science and Technology in Montpellier, France. He then was a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Pharmacy of the University of Minnesota. Then he worked as a team member of a pharmaceutical start up in Paris; he is co-author of several patents. In 1995 Renaud moved to Montpellier to work for the French governmental agency in charge of regulating health products.
Renaud was a member of the committee that produced the official 2014 French report on “Challenges and methods of environmental geo-engineering.” Then, he and other co-authors were the first to propose feasible and scalable technologies to enhance outgoing infrared energy from the Earth to outer space, in the journal Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews (March 2014).
Among his other key contributions to science are his proposals to improve solar updraft chimneys in order to produce CO2 free renewable energy and fresh water in arid regions. He has co-authored several influential peer-reviewed papers on atmospheric methane removal including:
- de Richter, R., Caillol, S. “Fighting global warming: the potential of photocatalysis against CO2, CH4, N2O, CFCs, tropospheric O3, BC and other major contributors to climate change.” Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology C: Photochemistry Reviews, (2011), 12(1): 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jphotochemrev.2011.05.002
- de Richter, R., Ming, T., Davies, P., Liu, W., & Caillol, S. Removal of non-CO2 greenhouse gases by large-scale atmospheric solar photocatalysis. Progress in Energy and Combustion Science. (2017), 60, 68-96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pecs.2017.01.001
- Ming, T., de Richter, R., Oeste, F.D., Tulip, R. and Caillol, S. A nature-based negative emissions technology able to remove atmospheric methane and other greenhouse gases. Atmospheric Pollution Research, (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apr.2021.02.017