To Cut Methane, Build Global Capacity

Commentary by Ben Cahill

Published October 3, 2024

Methane reductions will be high on the agenda at November's UN Conference of the Parties (COP29) climate summit, but there is a problem in efforts to cut emissions of this greenhouse gas. Most expertise in methane science resides in Western countries, but this knowledge must be shared widely to meet global reduction targets. To help oil- and gas-producing states and national oil companies (NOCs) cut methane, the United States and the European Union should help fund capacity building in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Government support and philanthropic efforts should focus on training scientists and engineers to take on this challenge in their home countries.

Awareness of the methane challenge has grown rapidly over the past decade. Methane is believed to be responsible for at least 25 percent of global warming in the industrial era. Despite many government and corporate pledges, these emissions are still growing at a faster rate than other greenhouse gases, and atmospheric concentrations of methane are still rising. This is a particular challenge for the energy industry, which accounts for more than one-third of anthropogenic methane emissions-with the majority of this share coming from oil and gas production.

The good news is that new rules and technology breakthroughs will enable progress. Regulations in the United States, the European Union, and elsewhere will require companies to monitor, report, and verify their methane emissions, cut gas flaring and venting, and use remote sensing and continuous monitoring systems to find and address fugitive emissions. The industry's largest producers have already made substantial reductions in methane intensity.

The bad news is that these advances are uneven. In the United States, emissions performance varies among operators even within the same production basin, and there is a big discrepancy between company-reported data and measured data from satellites and aerial surveys. Internationally, methane reductions are still in the early stages. The wasteful and environmentally hazardous practice of gas flaring persists in countries including Russia, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, and Algeria. NOCs account for about half of global oil and gas production, but these companies have economic and energy security mandates that can hamper their climate commitments. A number of NOCs have pledged to greatly reduce their methane emissions by 2030, but others have no discernible targets.

Human capacity is a key challenge. Even NOCs with firm reduction targets lack many staff members with the technical background and training needed to develop advanced methane detection and quantification. Deploying new measurement technologies, interpreting data and results, and reconciling different emissions estimates are challenging tasks. Bridging this gap will be essential to help NOCs meet their methane reduction goals.

Plenty of organizations are offering to help. Industry groups like the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative and voluntary initiatives like the Methane Guiding Principles create peer pressure for methane reductions and help companies share best practices. The World Bank recently launched, with government and industry support, a program to finance methane abatement projects and provide policy support to governments. Philanthropies are supporting efforts to boost methane transparency and create roadmaps and accountability frameworks. Organizations like the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership hold frequent workshops and training sessions for NOCs. And the Energy Emissions Modeling and Data Lab is developing open-access models and tools to support better emissions accounting across supply chains.

However, the concentration of methane science in North America and Europe is an obstacle to global methane reduction. It is encouraging that so many academics, students, and policy wonks in the United States are tackling the methane challenge, but it is important to develop this capacity in other countries as well-especially resource-rich countries that will continue to produce oil and gas for decades to come.

Government agencies and philanthropies should fund new research centers at universities in countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia with close links to NOCs. Training the next generation of engineers, atmospheric scientists, and health, safety, and environment experts in leading-edge methane detection and quantification would equip them to address these challenges in their home countries. University consortia, faculty exchanges, and visiting fellowships could foster collaboration and support research by PhD students and postdocs.

Governments, foundations, and international organizations helped to create strong momentum for methane reductions in the oil and gas sector. The next goal should be to accelerate and sustain progress by developing new centers of excellence for methane science around the world.

Ben Cahill is a senior associate (non-resident) with the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He is director, Energy Markets and Policy at the University of Texas at Austin's Center for Energy and Environmental Systems Analysis.

This commentary was made possible by Environmental Defense Fund as part of a project on financial sector engagement with national oil companies.

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