COP29: Satellites spot methane leaks – however ‘super-emitters’ don’t repair them

The world has extra methods than ever to identify the invisible methane emissions accountable for a 3rd of worldwide warming thus far. However in response to a report launched on the COP29 local weather summit, methane “super-emitters” hardly ever take motion when alerted that they’re leaking massive quantities of the potent greenhouse gasoline.

“We’re not seeing the transparency and the sense of urgency that we require,” says Manfredi Caltagirone, director of the United Nations Setting Programme’s Worldwide Methane Emissions Observatory, which not too long ago launched a system that makes use of satellite tv for pc knowledge to alert methane emitters about leaks.

Methane is the second most vital greenhouse gasoline to deal with, behind carbon dioxide, and a rising variety of international locations have promised to slash methane emissions so as to keep away from near-term warming. Ultimately yr’s COP28 local weather summit, lots of the world’s largest oil and gasoline corporations additionally pledged to “eliminate” methane emissions from their operations.

At present, a rising variety of satellites are starting to detect methane leaks from the most important sources of such emissions: oil and gasoline infrastructure, coal mines, landfill and agriculture. That knowledge is vital to holding emitters to account, says Mark Brownstein on the Environmental Protection Fund, an environmental advocacy group that not too long ago launched its personal methane-sensing satellite tv for pc. “But data by itself doesn’t solve the problem,” he says.

The primary yr of the UN methane alert system illustrates the yawning hole between knowledge and motion. Over the previous yr, the programme issued 1225 alerts to governments and firms when it recognized plumes of methane from oil and gasoline infrastructure massive sufficient to be detected from area. It now studies that emitters solely took steps to regulate these leaks 15 instances, a response charge of about 1 per cent.

There are a selection of doable causes for this, says Caltagirone. Emitters may lack technical or monetary assets and a few sources of methane will be tough to chop off, though emissions from oil and gasoline infrastructure are extensively seen to be the simplest to cope with. “It’s plumbing. It’s not rocket science,” he says.

One other clarification is perhaps that emitters are nonetheless getting used to the brand new alert system. Nonetheless, different methane displays have reported an analogous lack of response. “Our success rate is not much better,” says Jean-Francois Gauthier at GHGSat, a Canadian firm that has issued related satellite tv for pc alerts for years. “It’s on the order of 2 or 3 per cent.”

There have been some successes. As an example, the UN issued a number of alerts this yr to the Algerian authorities a couple of methane supply that had been repeatedly leaking since at the very least 1999, with a world warming impact equal to half 1,000,000 vehicles pushed for a yr. By October, satellite tv for pc knowledge confirmed it had disappeared.

However the general image suggests monitoring isn’t but translating into emission reductions. “Simply showing methane plumes is not enough to generate action,” says Rob Jackson at Stanford College in California. A core drawback he sees is that satellites hardly ever reveal who owns the leaky pipeline or the methane-emitting effectively, making accountability tough.

Methane is a significant matter of debate on the COP29 assembly, now beneath means in Baku, Azerbaijan. A summit this week on “non-CO2 greenhouse gases”, convened by the US and China, noticed international locations announce a number of actions on methane emissions. They embrace a price on methane within the US, which is geared toward oil and gasoline emitters – though many count on the incoming Trump administration to undo that rule.