Governments of major producing countries and six multinational oil and gas companies formed a methane emissions reduction taskforce during the United Nation’s global climate change summit in New York.
The Oil and Gas Methane Partnership will be a UN Climate and Clean Air Coalition initiative that “provides involved companies with a systematic, cost-effective approach for reducing their methane emissions and for credibly demonstrating to stakeholders the impacts of their actions, the White House said on Sept 23.
“I am so glad to see concrete initiatives that will help reduce the release of short-lived climate pollutants into the atmosphere,” UN Sec. Gen. Ban Ki-moon said of the group’s formal launch during the climate change summit. “These announcements show how governments, corporations and civil society can work together to reduce emissions.”
Significant action is needed especially by the oil and gas sector, which the UN’s CCAC said is responsible for more than 20% of the world’s methane emissions—second only to the agriculture sector.
It said industry participants include Eni SPA of Italy, Petroleos Mexicanos of Mexico, Norway’s Statoil Group, Houston-based Southwestern Energy Co., BG Group (the former British Gas), and PTT, Thailand’s national oil and gas company.
The US, Russian, Nigerian, Norwegian, and Mexican governments are among those from producing countries that are participating, CCAC added.
Replicate progress
In Washington, American Petroleum Institute Pres. Jack N. Gerard said that plans to address methane emissions should replicate substantial progress that the US oil and gas industry has made already. “As natural gas production has grown 37% over the last 20 years, methane emissions from gas systems have fallen 17%,” he indicated.
Citing a statement by US President Barack Obama that US greenhouse gas emissions are at their lowest level in 20 years, Gerard said that progress has been based on the oil and gas industry’s commitment to produce more energy more efficiently, “rather than any government-imposed mandate to reduce production, raise costs, or layer new regulations.”
He said the US industry has invested $81 billion in GHG reduction technologies in the last 10 years, $2 billion more than the federal government’s commitment and almost as much as all other industries combined ($91 billion).
“Clearly, we know what works,” Gerard said. “While the environmental fringe may push for policies that raise energy prices, or undercut supplies—or even suggest we should leave it in the ground—that is not a future many Americans would support: a planned decline in standard of living, loss of mobility, lower family incomes, electricity rationing, and population control.”
Leaders of 16 US environmental organizations urged Obama to impose methane emission controls on the oil and gas industry in a letter 3 days before the UN conference.
Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].