The European Commission announced Nov. 12 the launch of a new Methane Abatement Partnership Roadmap, pledging to accelerate reductions in methane emissions associated with the production and consumption of fossil fuels.
The joint initiative, set in motion at the 29th UN Climate Change Conference in Baku, is a collaboration with "a number of partner countries, international organizations, NGOs and development banks," the EC said.
The roadmap is intended to provide a blueprint for cooperation among fossil fuel importing and exporting countries, stepping up efforts to implement monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) systems to reduce emissions.
"For the EU, it is clear: we will only be able to tackle methane emissions effectively if we work together across global supply chains with everyone involved," the EU's Commissioner for Climate Action, Wopke Hoekstra, said.
Hoekstra added that reducing methane emissions "made economic sense" while also boosting energy security.
The roadmap would set out a series of concrete actions to be undertaken by both producers and consumers, which included MRV uptake, in addition to a project plan to abate emissions from existing assets.
The initiative follows the May 27 ratification of EU's Methane Regulation, a law aimed at tracking and reducing methane emissions in the energy sector.
Part of the EU's Fit for 55 package, the regulation calls on member states to regularly update an inventory of all wells, with national authorities carrying out periodic inspections to check and ensure operators' compliance with the requirements.
The energy sector -- including oil, natural gas, coal and bioenergy -- accounts for nearly 40% of methane emissions from human activity.
Following the November 2021 launch of the US-EU Global Methane Pledge -- which saw some 150 countries pledge to reduce emissions -- the EU announced Eur175 million in financial support to curb emissions as part of a "Methane Finance Sprint" in December 2023.
Climate targets
Despite the establishment of the Global Methane Pledge being a "catalyst" for action, the EC noted the world was not on track to reach a 30% reduction in methane emissions by 2030, citing the IEA's 2024 Global Methane Tracker.
The EC said further policies, additional transparent and measurement-based data, as well as extensive investment plans would be needed to deliver on its targets.
This was particularly pertinent for the goal of keeping within the climate target of 1.5 degrees Celsius for global warming, as stipulated in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
Methane emissions from fossil fuels would need to fall by some 75% by 2030 to stay within that limit, while the Methane Abatement Partnership Roadmap provided an "essential first step" in tackling emissions, according to a coalition of NGOs formed by the Clean Air Task Force, Methane Matters Coalition and Environmental Defense Fund.
The IEA, similarly, estimates some 80 million mt of annual methane emissions from fossil fuels could be avoided through the deployment of known and existing technologies, often at low, or even negative cost.
The agency puts annual methane emissions on a global scale at some 580 million mt.
"Forging Methane Abatement Partnerships between importers and producers can advance transparency in emissions data, support strong policies, and lay the groundwork for data-driven reductions to drive down methane emissions across the oil and natural gas supply chain," the IEA's executive director Fatih Birol said Nov. 11 in Baku.
Many in the energy sector are starting to undertake measures to curb methane pollution.
At the COP28 summit in Dubai last year, 50 companies committed to setting interim targets that would reduce methane emissions intensity to 0.2% in oil and natural gas production by 2030 and to end routine flaring.
Methane emissions generated by production are a significant contributor to the carbon intensity of natural gas.
Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assesses methane performance certificates traded in the spot market that represent low methane emissions in natural gas production in the US and Canada.
Each MPC represents 1 MMBtu of gas with zero methane emissions produced. Platts reflects MPCs that have been issued against production that has a methane intensity of less than 0.1%.
Prices have recovered to $0.035/MPC on Nov. 11 after having fallen to just $0.008/MPC in mid-August 2023, Commodity Insights data showed.
