The Biden administration and European Union officials reached a deal to reduce methane emissions at least 30% by the decade’s end and are looking to secure commitments from other nations to make cutting the potent greenhouse gas into a global effort.
Officials from the EU and the United States agreed to the “Global Methane Pledge” and will likely pitch it to others during the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate on Friday before introducing the initiative at the United Nations’s climate change conference in November, according to multiple reports.
Nations that officials want to target for the pledge reportedly include China, the world’s No. 1 greenhouse gas emitter, as well as top-ranking emitters Russia and India. Oil-producing Saudi Arabia and Qatar, along with Norway, Brazil, and New Zealand, are also on the list of nations to be targeted with the methane pledge, Reuters reported.
“We are grateful to be working with EU and partner countries towards a collective global goal to significantly reduce methane emissions,” a senior White House official said in a call with reporters on Wednesday, adding that partner countries would be announced Friday.
A spokesperson with the State Department’s climate office declined to comment.
HOUSE COMMITTEE APPROVES DEMOCRATS’ CENTERPIECE CLEAN ELECTRICITY CLIMATE PLAN
The methane pledge is an effort by the administration to involve the world in tackling its priority of cutting the second-most emitted greenhouse gas, something that the Democrats’ Build Back Better reconciliation bill addresses in accordance with Biden’s goal of reducing U.S. emissions by 50% to 52% by 2030.
Methane released into the atmosphere comes from a variety of sources, with oil and gas being responsible for the largest single share of methane emissions in 2019, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Agriculture is also responsible for a significant share of methane emissions. Livestock’s digestive processes and manure management together were responsible for 36% of methane emissions in 2019, EPA figures show.
The U.S.-EU pledge to cut methane is germane, considering its warming effect, but the 30% target is not as ambitious as it could be, according to Arvind Ravikumar, a professor in the petroleum engineering department at the University of Texas.
“Over the past five years, our understanding of methane emissions, and technology to address emissions, have significantly improved. And I think there’s no reason why countries cannot be more ambitious than a 30% reduction in emissions,” Ravikumar said, pointing to the Obama administration’s goal of cutting methane emissions by 40 to 45% from 2012 levels by 2025.
The EPA is preparing to propose new methane regulations later this month that are expected to tighten control of the pollutant gas to help meet emissions reductions targets, something leading oil and gas industry trade group the American Petroleum Institute expressed support for earlier this year after previously supporting the Trump administration’s elimination of direct regulation of methane.
“This is a new position for API, but we think given where the industry is at this time and the continued importance of reducing methane, it was critical we update this position as the administration changes,” API CEO Mike Sommers told the Washington Examiner in July.
Congressional Democrats are also pursuing a methane fee on the oil and gas industry operations as a means of meeting emissions targets and raising revenue, which many oil and gas groups and Republicans have opposed.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the fee out of committee Tuesday over objections from Republicans it would amount to a tax on consumers as producers pass the new costs on to them.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Republicans on the energy committee generally agreed that methane needs to be curbed but opposed the fee method. GOP members also sought to amend the committee’s markup to include specific language protecting farmers from having to pay a methane fee for methane emitted in connection to their farm operations, although Democrats rejected the push, calling it unnecessary, as the proposed fee targets oil and gas.
Interest groups and Republicans beyond the House energy committee have leveled their own criticism against a methane fee. Over 100 industry and labor trade groups, led by API, warned leading senators that a methane fee “could jeopardize affordable and reliable energy with likely little reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.”
