In an early climate win at the United Nations COP28 negotiations in Dubai, some of the world’s largest oil and gas companies committed to controlling their emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that plays a major role in the planet’s warming.
COP28 officials announced Saturday that 50 oil and gas companies committed to virtually eliminating the emissions of methane from their oil and gas production by 2030. The list includes several giant government-owned national oil companies. Collectively, the companies joining the agreement represent more than 40 percent of global oil production. The companies also agreed to monitoring by independent groups to verify the emissions reductions.
The agreement is a victory for COP28 President Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, who has faced intense criticism for helming the climate talks while also being an executive with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.
In his opening remarks Thursday, Al Jaber touted the developing methane deal as evidence that oil companies can be part of climate solutions.
“I am grateful they have stepped up to join this game-changing journey,” Al Jaber said. “I know they can do much more.”
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Methane, the main component of natural gas, does not persist in the atmosphere for as long as the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. But upon its release, scientists say, methane is 80 to 100 times more powerful at trapping heat than CO2, and methane contributes greatly to short-term warming.
In a briefing with reporters, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry stressed the importance of controlling methane. “We think it’s the easiest, quickest and cheapest way to start making gains against global warming,” Kerry said.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan also announced at COP28 on Saturday strong rules to reduce methane emissions from oil and gas operations in the U.S.
Methane frequently escapes from drilling pads and pipelines and is often flared off at oil processing facilities. In a report released in the week leading up to COP28, the International Energy Agency stressed the importance of reducing emissions from the petroleum industry’s operations. The IEA found that the production, transport and processing of oil and gas accounts for about 15 percent of the world’s energy-related greenhouse gas emissions.
“This is a huge amount, equivalent to all energy-related greenhouse gas emissions from the United States,” the IEA report stated.
Prior to today’s agreement, less than half of the world’s oil and gas supply came from companies with targets to reduce their emissions, according to the IEA. For many years, the emissions of methane were poorly monitored, and several studies showed emissions were vastly underestimated by environmental regulators.
The U.S.-based nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund was closely following the negotiations on today’s agreement and has developed methane-monitoring technology to improve transparency and accountability. EDF operates an aerial monitoring system of most U.S. onshore oil and gas operations and plans to launch a monitoring satellite in partnership with the New Zealand Space Agency in early 2024. EDF says the satellite will allow methane monitoring worldwide.
EDF President Fred Krupp, a long-time advocate of harnessing market forces for climate action, said improvements in monitoring likely motivated oil companies to make a deal, and he predicted the resulting emissions reductions will make a real difference.
“What was announced has the potential to have the biggest impact on temperatures we’ll experience over the next decade of anything I’ve seen in my more than three-decade-long career,” Krupp told Newsweek.
The timing of the methane agreement’s announcement in the early stages of nearly two weeks of talks could be meant to counter criticism from some environmentalists and scientists that the oil industry has co-opted the U.N.’s climate negotiations process.
This year’s host country, the United Arab Emirates, is among the world’s biggest oil producers and its appointment of Al Jaber as the COP28 president brought howls of protest from activists such as former Vice President Al Gore.
However, Krupp said Al Jaber’s role paved the way for the methane reduction deal.
“This dual role as an oil company CEO and president of the COP I think helped him rally the support of other oil companies to make this commitment,” Krupp said.
Shortly after taking the gavel as president at the COP28 opening ceremony Thursday, Al Jaber pushed back against his critics.
“Let history reflect the fact that this is the presidency that made a bold choice to proactively engage with oil and gas companies,” Al Jaber said from the podium.
However, as meaningful as the methane agreement is, it is far short of the action required on fossil fuel emissions in order to limit the most dangerous warming, as nations committed to do in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Al Jaber will be pressured to persuade his fellow oil executives to phase out the use of their main product.