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MARS: UN unveils plans to track methane emissions from space

Posted on November 15, 2022November 15, 2022 by dishanth

Announced as part of the decarbonisation-themed day in the COP27 Presidency agenda, the Methane Alert and Response System (MARS) will be operated as part of the UN Environment Programmes International Methane Emissions Observatory. It has secured funding from the European Commission, US Government and the Bezos Earth Fund.

Data collected by MARS will be publicly available, in what is believed to be a world first. Additionally, major emissions events will be relayed to those with the power to step in with remediation, including national governments, states and corporates. These organisations will be able to ask the MARS team to provide advice.

Data will be collected from the energy sector in the first instance. Energy production is the world’s largest source of methane, which is often generated by flaring at oil and gas facilities or released via leaks in the sector. In time, data on methane from coal, waste and agriculture will be captured. Agriculture is the world’s second-largest source of methane, primarily from livestock and rice. As such, it will be these two agriculture sub-sectors which MARS focuses on.

Methane has been steadily rising up the climate agenda in recent years as science has improved. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded, within the past 18 months, that at least a quarter of global heating to date is attributable to methane.

Global methane pledge

Spearheaded by the US, many of the world’s highest methane emitting nations have signed up to the ‘Global Methane Pledge’. This entails reducing methane emissions by 30% by 2030 against a 2019 or 2020 baseline (some nations have chosen 2019 as a baseline as emissions dipped in 2020 due to Covid-19 lockdown restrictions. In total, 130 nations and states have signed up for the Pledge.

The UN Environment Programme’s executive director Inger Andersen said that MARS represents “a big step in helping governments and companies deliver on this important short-term climate goal”. “Reducing methane emissions can make a big and rapid difference, as this gas leaves the atmosphere far quicker than carbon dioxide,” Andersen added.

The US Climate Envoy, John Kerry, and President, Joe Biden, were both on the ground in Sharm El-Sheikh today (11 November) to deliver speeches. Both of them emphasised the importance of cutting methane emissions this decade to give the world the best chance of meeting the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C pathway.

Earlier this year, the US partnered with the EU to set out joint measures to address methane emissions from the oil and gas sector.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has confirmed today that it is bringing forward new proposed standards to bring energy sector methane down by up to 87% by 2030, against a 2005 baseline. If implemented in full, the EPA claims, the proposals will mitigate 36 million tonnes of methane between 2023 and 2035, equivalent to all of the greenhouse gas emissions of all of the US’s coal-fired power plants in 2020.

Internationally, the US signed a new joint declaration on reducing emissions from the fossil fuel sector, with a focus on methane. The other supporters of the declaration are the EU, the UK, Japan, Canada, Norway and Singapore.

Under the declaration, these nations have pledged to bring forward new policies and measures to eliminate venting and flaring and to force oil and gas companies to improve leak detection and repair efforts. Nations will either require or “strongly incentivise” nations from which they import fossil energies to reduce their emissions, as well.

Source edie

Cutting methane should be a key Cop26 aim, research suggests

Posted on October 4, 2021 by dishanth

Sharp cuts in methane from leaking gas drilling platforms and production sites could play a major role in the greenhouse gas emissions reductions necessary to fulfil the Paris climate agreement, and should be a key aim for the Cop26 UN climate talks, new research suggests.

Cutting global emissions of methane by 40% by 2030 is achievable, with most cuts possible at low cost or even at a profit for companies such as oil and gas producers. It would make up for much of the shortfall in emissions reductions plans from national governments, according to the Energy Transitions Commission thinktank.

Ahead of Cop26, senior UN and UK officials have privately conceded that the top aim of the conference – for all countries to formulate plans called nationally determined contributions (NDCs), that would add up to a global 45% cut in emissions by 2030 – will not be met.

However, the UK as hosts of the summit, to be held in Glasgow in November, still hope for enough progress to show that the world can still limit global heating to 1.5C, the aspiration of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in warming the planet. It is the biggest component of natural gas, used for fuel, and leaks can be caused by poorly constructed conventional drilling operations, shale gas wells, gas pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure. Methane is also flared from some oil production sites.

Staunching such leaks or capturing the methane instead can be done at a low cost, and can even be profitable for gas producers, especially now as the international gas price soars. Just a few key producers – Russia, the US, China and Canada – could make a massive impact.

Lord Adair Turner, chairman of the ETC, said: “It is clear that if you add up NDCs they are not big enough to keep us to 1.5C. There is a huge gap left. But there are some actions that you can imagine groups of countries taking that could close that gap.”

The US and the EU recently announced a partnership aiming at reducing methane emissions by 30% by 2030, but Turner said more could be achieved and this would help to compensate for the relatively unambitious NDCs that many countries have.

“We have not focused enough on methane, but it can be a really important lever, and cutting it has an impact [on global heating] sooner rather than later, which matters if there are feedback loops in the climate system,” he added.

Turner also pointed to other key actions that could be taken at Cop26 which he said would substantially help global efforts to tackle the climate crisis. For instance, helping developing countries to phase out their existing coal-fired power plants was one key way of reducing reliance on coal.

In India, for instance, new coal-fired power stations are now more expensive than renewable alternatives, yet the marginal cost of electricity generation from existing coal-fired power stations is still cheaper than wind or solar. That means companies have an incentive to keep old coal-fired power plants going, but if they could be paid to phase out the oldest, that would accelerate the country’s move away from coal.

“Developing countries need financial support to do this,” Turner said.

Steel should be another focus, according to Turner. Steel companies could move to “green” steel production, using hydrogen, far more easily than a few years ago, he said. A global agreement among steel producers at Cop26 could achieve that, and similar global agreements were possible among cement producers, the shipping industry and other high-carbon sectors.

Many countries, Turner added, were submitting NDCs that were too cautious or did not reflect how fast businesses were already cutting emissions and moving to green energy and clean technology. “NDCs have not caught up with what is possible and what is actually happening,” he said.

Source The Guardian