Methane politics: unity and division in the oil and gas industry
Speaker: Nikolai Drahos – 07/07/2026
We had the pleasure of hosting Nikolai Drahos, from the Australian National University, for his presentation on unity and division in the oil and gas industry. Nikolai joined the METHPOL team on campus at the University of Leeds, with others joining online from various locations around the world. Drawing from his own first-hand research, including interviews with elite figures in the industry, Nikolai took us through the key points of his findings and opened the floor to questions at the end of the presentation.
Thanks very much to Nikolai and everyone who joined to take part in the seminar.
About Nikolai:
Nikolai Drahos is a PhD candidate at the ANU School of Regulation and Global Governance, where his research focuses on the political history around oil and gas methane emissions. He has over a decade of experience working on climate and energy policy, politics and economics. Nikolai holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) and a Master of Environmental and Resource Economics from the Australian National University. He is a recipient of the Sir Roland Wilson PhD Scholarship, and a visiting fellow in the Gas Programme at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.
Abstract of the seminar:
Methane emissions have emerged as an urgent global climate policy priority, with new regulatory regimes taking shape in several key jurisdictions. This represents a remarkable change from a decade ago when methane emissions were largely unregulated. While the oil and gas industry has often fought methane regulation, at other times it has been divided. Nikolai’s presentation examines why the industry has been unified or divided over methane regulation, and what the consequences have been for the political feasibility of methane policy. His presentation focuses on the United States, where he has spent the last three years interviewing oil and gas executives, NGOs, institutional investors and political elites. More broadly, Nikolai’s research sheds light on the role of incumbent industries in environmental politics.
Unfortunately, we are unable to publish a recording of the seminar on this occasion, but if you would like to read the PhD articles that featured in the presentation, they are as follows:
Drahos, Nikolai 2025, “Breaking ranks: business fragmentation over climate policy reforms”, Business & Politics.
Drahos, Nikolai 2026, “The carbon pricing politics of methane: the minor miracle of the US methane fee”. Global Environmental Politics.