Nearly 50 oil and gas companies worldwide have pledged to shore up leaky methane systems by 2030; It’s a move that, if companies keep their promises, could quickly reduce emissions of the potent gas and prevent some climate change impacts.
The pledge, announced by Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai on Saturday, calls on oil and gas companies to dramatically reduce methane leaks to “near zero” by 2030. Al Jaber is the conference participant President, the United Arab Emirates’ special envoy for climate, and the CEO of ADNOC, a state-owned oil and gas company.
The commitment also includes ExxonMobil and Saudi Arabia’s Aramco, among the world’s largest oil and gas producers.
Several environmental nonprofits and intergovernmental organizations, including the Environmental Defense Fund and the International Energy Agency, have signed agreements to use satellite technology to track efforts and provide additional accountability measures.
Other environmental groups have condemned the new deal, called the Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter, as part of a greenwashing effort. More than 300 organizations signed an open letter criticizing this effort.
“Methane emissions and gas flaring are symptomatic of a legacy of more than a century of wasteful, destructive practices in the oil and gas industry in pursuit of huge profits regardless of the consequences,” the groups wrote. “The only safe and effective way to ‘clean up’ fossil fuel pollution is to phase out fossil fuels.”
Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Controlling methane, whose atmospheric concentration has been rising for decades, is seen as one of the easiest and cheapest ways to make an immediate impact on global greenhouse gas emissions. And many fossil fuel companies have a natural incentive to reduce leaks, which often costs them money in lost supply.
“This is not a complicated technology. Mostly plumbing, it’s simple — you know — tightening screws, sealing leaks, stopping flaring, stopping ventilation, which just wastes gas, burns it in the atmosphere, and causes damage,” said United States special expert John Kerry, the presidential climate envoy, on the accountability measures behind the agreement. “It’s absolutely critical that we deal with methane,” he said at a briefing, adding that methane is responsible for about 30% of the planet’s warming.
A 2019 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report estimates that methane’s potential contribution to global warming is 80 times greater than that of an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide when its effects are measured over 20 years. Methane, the main component of natural gas, accounts for approximately 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions from the world’s energy supply, according to the IPCC’s latest report. Methane is also produced in landfills, agriculture, and natural processes such as decomposition.
Also on Saturday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced its final rule on methane pollution, which the agency said would reduce emissions from the U.S. oil and gas industry by about 80% above what would be expected without it. The rule would specify how the oil and gas industry finds and fixes leaks, strengthens flaring provisions and improves emissions standards for pumps.
A study published this summer in the journal Environmental Research Letters suggests that leaking methane could be as bad as coal for global warming; Which shows why world leaders are so excited about this issue.
Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, said the oil and gas companies’ agreement could be the most beneficial environmental action of his career if the companies follow through on their commitments.
“We have to make sure the oil companies deliver, we have to hold them accountable,” Krupp said in an interview. “Many promises were made in the COPs that were not kept.”
EDF analysis shows that about 2-3% of natural gas extracted from the ground leaks into the air during flaring due to incomplete combustion, leaking compressor seals or vent valves, Krupp said. The agreement calls for limiting this leakage to near zero, defined as 0.2%, Krupp said.
“Every piece of equipment, every component, can leak methane throughout the supply chain,” said Arvind Ravikumar, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin and co-director of the Energy Emissions Modeling and Data Laboratory. “The only way to know is to go look for it.”
Ravikumar, who was not involved in Saturday’s announcements, said about 10 percent of leaks in the oil and gas supply chain account for more than 50 percent of all methane emissions.
“If you want to address methane emissions, find these super emitters and fix them,” Ravikumar said. “There is an economic interest in stopping the leaks.”
Many publicly traded oil and gas companies are under public pressure to reduce leaks, but an international agreement is essential to encourage private or national companies to take similar actions, Ravikumar said.
EDF plans to launch a satellite next year that can detect methane leaks. Bloomberg Philanthropies, which coordinates former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s charitable giving, has pledged $40 million to create tools to track methane leaks and expand data tracking and coordination among organizations focused on accountability.
Krupp said companies must report emissions data for third-party verification, and organizations monitoring that effort, including EDF, need to be able to make sure they’re being followed.
This article first appeared on NBCNews.com.