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 chargeable for a 3rd of world warming to this point. However in line with a report launched on the COP29 local weather summit, methane “super-emitters” not often 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 Atmosphere 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 essential greenhouse gasoline to deal with, behind carbon dioxide, and a rising variety of international locations have promised to slash methane emissions with a purpose to keep away from near-term warming. Ultimately 12 months’s COP28 local weather summit, most of the world’s largest oil and gasoline corporations additionally pledged to “eliminate” methane emissions from their operations.

Right this moment, a rising variety of satellites are starting to detect methane leaks from the largest sources of such emissions: oil and gasoline infrastructure, coal mines, landfill and agriculture. That knowledge is essential 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 12 months of the UN methane alert system illustrates the yawning hole between knowledge and motion. Over the previous 12 months, 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 house. It now reviews that emitters solely took steps to manage these leaks 15 occasions, a response price of about 1 per cent.

There are a variety of potential causes for this, says Caltagirone. Emitters would possibly lack technical or monetary sources and a few sources of methane will be troublesome to chop off, though emissions from oil and gasoline infrastructure are extensively seen to be the best to take care of. “It’s plumbing. It’s not rocket science,” he says.

One other rationalization is perhaps that emitters are nonetheless getting used to the brand new alert system. Nonetheless, different methane screens have reported the same lack of response. “Our success rate is not much better,” says Jean-Francois Gauthier at GHGSat, a Canadian firm that has issued comparable 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 12 months to the Algerian authorities a couple of methane supply that had been constantly leaking since at the very least 1999, with a worldwide warming impact equal to half 1,000,000 vehicles pushed for a 12 months. 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 downside he sees is that satellites not often reveal who owns the leaky pipeline or the methane-emitting nicely, making accountability troublesome.

Methane is a serious subject of debate on the COP29 assembly, now underneath method 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 aimed toward oil and gasoline emitters – though many anticipate the incoming Trump administration to undo that rule.