COP28: Oil and gas companies agree to cut methane at UN climate conference

Negotiators from world wide assembly on the COP28 local weather convention within the United Arab Emirates (UAE) final week agreed to place more cash behind pledges to chop methane pollution. If met, these commitments would avert a big quantity of warming earlier than the top of the last decade. However that’s an enormous ”if,” particularly since international locations stay reluctant to sort out the most important supply of methane emissions.

Methane is a mighty greenhouse gasoline, roughly 30 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in the case of trapping warmth within the ambiance. About 60 p.c of world methane emissions come from human exercise, accounting for a quarter of all warming. However in contrast to carbon dioxide, it doesn’t linger that lengthy within the sky, so slicing humanity’s methane output is without doubt one of the quickest methods to scale back the planet’s fee of warming.

It additionally has worth as a gasoline, so there’s a monetary incentive to seize methane and burn it slightly than let it escape. As well as, a whole lot of methane air pollution tends to return from distinct sources like gasoline wells and landfills, so focusing on these services for cuts can have an outsize impact.

This all makes methane a ripe, juicy goal for individuals hoping to curb climate change — yielding better reductions in warming and at decrease prices than simply limiting carbon dioxide.

Greater than 150 international locations so far have already signed onto the Global Methane Pledge. It commits signatories to slicing methane emissions from human sources by 30 p.c from 2020 ranges by the top of the last decade, which, if achieved, has the potential to avert 0.2 levels Celsius of warming by 2050 (0.36 levels Fahrenheit).

At COP28, a number of international locations — together with the US, Canada, Brazil, and Egypt — introduced how they plan to fulfill their targets, and international locations introduced greater than $1 billion in new grant funding to assist scale back methane.

America is the third-largest methane-emitting country after China and Russia. The brand new US methane rules on the oil and gasoline business, which the Environmental Protection Agency introduced as a last rule on the convention, would avert 58 million tons of methane air pollution between 2024 and 2038. The regulation additionally requires gear upgrades and common inspections of air pollution management techniques.

The regulation even received reward from an oil firm: “We recognize the collaborative method EPA, NGOs and business labored collectively on this rulemaking,” BP America president Orlando Alvarez mentioned in a press release. “Within the spirit of COP28, enter from a broad vary of stakeholders makes for extra sturdy and efficient policies.”

This 12 months at COP, a lot of companies have additionally promised to chop their methane output. Underneath the Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter, 50 corporations accounting for 40 p.c of world oil manufacturing dedicated to eliminating their methane emissions by 2050. In addition they dedicated to ending flaring by 2030. Flaring is a observe the place oil wells burn off gathered methane slightly than capturing it as a consequence of rules, for security, or as a result of it’s cheaper. To facilitate this, the World Financial institution introduced the creation of a $250 million trust fund to assist corporations keep away from flaring, however main oil and gasoline corporations like Chevron and Exxon Mobil declined to chip in for now.

Few of the introduced actions, nevertheless, embody the biggest driver of methane air pollution: the meals we eat.

From tilling soil to planting crops, to fertilizer, livestock, manure, harvesting, transport, and waste, meals techniques produce 34 percent of overall greenhouse gas emissions. Agriculture is the single-largest anthropogenic, or human-driven, source of methane, and most of that’s from our urge for food for meat. Animals raised for meals account for 32 percent of human-driven methane.

Only one cow can produce anyplace from 154 to 264 pounds of methane annually, so the 1.5 billion cattle raised for beef world wide collectively burp up 231 billion kilos of this greenhouse gasoline.

George Rose/Getty Pictures

There have been some small efforts at COP28 to deal with the local weather affect of meals, and the assembly has devoted extra time to agriculture than previous conferences. Greater than two-thirds of the menu for the convention was plant-based, which comes with far smaller land, water, and power necessities than a extra animal-heavy menu. More than 100 countries agreed to seek out methods to scale back emissions from meals manufacturing. The US and the UAE introduced that they pooled $17 billion to advance extra climate-friendly farming techniques world wide. There have been additionally a pair new bulletins to deal particularly with methane. Canada launched incentives for Canadian ranchers to chop methane emissions from their cattle farms. And a number of other of the world’s largest dairy producers mentioned they are going to start reporting their methane emissions subsequent 12 months and draft plans to ratchet them down.

However there’s been little urge for food for lowering demand for meat and dairy, notably among the many rich international locations that eat essentially the most animal merchandise, as Vox’s Kenny Torrella explained:

The disinterest from Western governments in shifting diets isn’t stunning — meat stays the third rail of local weather politics. It tastes good, it’s grow to be a mainstay of Western diets, and it’s grow to be linked to beliefs like prosperity and masculinity. Taking it off the menu to assist save the planet isn’t politically in style, so even eco-minded politicians, environmental activists, and local weather reporters largely keep away from the difficulty.

In keeping with paperwork obtained by DeSmog and the Guardian, some lobbyists at COP28 are even making the case that extra meat and dairy are helpful to the setting. The Guardian additionally reported that some former officers on the United Nations Meals and Agriculture Group (FAO) mentioned their work displaying the damaging methane results from livestock was sidelined and censored.

The reluctance to even acknowledge the local weather impacts from elevating animals for meals is troubling on the tail finish of the hottest year ever recorded. In keeping with the FAO, methane emissions from livestock must fall 25 p.c by 2030 in comparison with 2020 to be able to keep heading in the right direction for the Paris local weather settlement objective to restrict world warming this century to lower than 1.5°C or 2.7°F. Total emissions of heat-trapping gasses are nonetheless slated to increase, placing these objectives nearly out of attain.

Even with the brand new spherical of commitments at COP28, the world will possible blow previous the 1.5°C objective, in response to the International Energy Agency, and it stays to be seen whether or not even these tepid guarantees might be fulfilled.