The world has pledged to tame methane. Emissions continue to rise – San Bernardino County Sun

John Kerry (R), US presidential special climate envoy, speaks at a US-China-UAE-Nigeria session on the global need to reduce methane emissions as Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber (C), president of the COP28 climate conference on UNFCCC , and Xie Zhenhua, China’s Special Representative for Climate Change, sit nearby during the second day of the high-level segment of the UNFCCC COP28 Climate Conference at Expo City Dubai on December 02, 2023 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates emirates. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

By Aaron Clark and Zachary R Meader, Bloomberg News (TNS)

Sitting in his cramped Paris office, Manfredi Caltagirone admits that one of the world’s best-known efforts to reduce methane emissions so far has not been to stop the gas from leaking out and warming the atmosphere.

Caltagirone heads the International Methane Emissions Observatory, or IMEO, an unofficial police force at the tip of the spear in the global war against the powerful greenhouse gas. His team at the United Nations includes researchers who sift through satellite data to identify and alert on methane plumes in an effort to help the nearly 160 countries that support a pledge made nearly three years ago to cut pollution by 30 percent by 2030.

Since launching a notification system in 2022, IMEO has reported more than 1,100 giant plumes of methane that have escaped from oil and gas facilities to companies and governments. Still, the number of releases confirmed to be suspended “can be counted on two hands, maybe one,” Caltagirone said. “Actions taken in response to notifications are lower than we expected.”

Tackling methane – and fast – has been declared a crucial priority by world leaders and fossil fuel executives, many of whom have signed an accelerating series of commitments since 2021 to bolster their green credentials. The new commitments are among the key outcomes of successive annual UN climate conferences, and big polluters insist they are making progress. The 12 members of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, which includes Saudi Arabia’s Aramco, Exxon Mobil Corp. and China National Petroleum Corp., say they have cut gas emissions in half since 2017.

Still, methane emissions from the fossil fuel industry, including coal mining, remain near the record level set in 2019 as supply continues to expand, according to data from the International Energy Agency. Atmospheric methane concentrations, from human and natural sources, have risen faster than at any time in history.

“There’s a big discrepancy between what companies say they’re emitting and what the scientific community thinks they’re emitting,” said Rob Jackson, a Stanford University climate scientist who has tracked the rise in methane. “We’re not seeing real action on a scale or at a pace that matters.”

Because methane traps much more heat than carbon dioxide in the short term, reducing emissions, especially from fossil fuel systems, is widely seen as one of the fastest and most achievable ways to slow global warming. Money is also pouring into technologies that can limit methane from harder sources like cows and landfills.

Methane will once again be in the spotlight when more than 190 countries gather in Baku for COP29 talks later this month. Azerbaijan, this year’s host, is a major gas exporter and serial emitter. This year it joined the flagship Global Methane Pledge to reduce emissions and will introduce a new international commitment to reduce methane from organic waste. The COP29 presidency will also convene a summit with the US and China on methane and other greenhouse gases other than CO2.

Still, curbing methane pollution will take years, even if the recent wave of pacts and agreements are successful. So far, at least, there is little to show for this much-touted effort.

The ability to pinpoint the source of emissions from the sky should have been a breakthrough in the fight against methane.

John Kerry, a former US climate envoy, described it as a shift in the balance of power between activists and companies at last year’s COP28 conference in Dubai. “You can run, but you can’t hide,” Kerry warned methane polluters. “We have to be willing to name and shame.” (Bloomberg Philanthropies has provided funding to help reduce methane emissions from fossil fuels, which includes a project with IMEO and other partners. The entity is the philanthropy of Michael Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, which owns Bloomberg News ).

IMEO data is pouring in today. Since last year, the agency has notified the US State Department of more than 160 large plumes of methane in 117 different locations. US agencies are “aggressively pursuing” the reports, the department said in a statement. At least one of the notices led to the identification of a previously unknown leak, and some prompted companies to reduce emissions, according to the statement.

Other examples in the US and off the coast of Thailand help illustrate the difficulties in quickly dealing with observed spills.

In an IMEO notice sent in July 2023, Caltagirone’s team said it spotted a plume of gas spewing from a site known as the Dominator Compressor Station in an oil-rich region of southern New Mexico, where a collection of half a dozen giant engines push gas from nearby wells into a pipeline. IMEO found that it emits methane at a rate that would have the same short-term global warming power as the tailpipes of 28,000 idling cars.

The IMEO memo was forwarded to the Environmental Protection Agency by the State Department, according to records obtained through a Freedom of Information request. The documents show that IMEO asked the authorities to contact the operators, but do not say what, if anything, the EPA did in response. In the following months, more clouds were observed on 10 more occasions. EPA does not comment on Dominator releases.

The New Mexico Division of Petroleum Conservation, which regulates methane emissions in the state, said it was unaware of the leaks until contacted by Bloomberg Green this April. An investigation has since concluded, with no fault of Energy Transfer LP, the company that operates the compressor station.

All releases are due to repairs and maintenance and are “within our permitted emissions,” Energy Transfer said in a statement.

In a separate case, IMEO began issuing warnings last November about an offshore gas rig in the Gulf of Thailand that has been leaking methane intermittently for more than a decade.

The facility is operated by units of Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd. and Thailand’s PTT Exploration and Production Pcl, which are among more than 140 companies that are members of the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership 2.0, an IMEO initiative aimed at improving reporting and mitigating releases.

Scientists at IMEO, part of the United Nations Environment Programme, continued to monitor methane from the site between July and early September and issued further warnings.

Carigali-PTTEPI Operating Company Sdn Bhd, which manages the site for the partners, has carried out a “comprehensive internal assessment, including drone surveys of our flare system”, in response, it said in a statement. The company said it had not detected a methane leak at the site’s central processing platform and that “facilities remain safe for operations and surrounding areas.”