The Key To Reducing Methane Emissions? Actual Measurement

The Key To Reducing Methane Emissions? Actual Measurement

Monitors greenhouse gas, inorganic ions, mercury, methane, trace metals and other persistant organic ... [+] pollutants in the environment. (Photo by Universal Images Group via Getty Images) By Mark Agerton and Ben Gilbert Methane reduction efforts in the oil and gas sector are a hot topic because cutting methane emissions buys time for the world to decarbonize. Methane warms the planet 85 times more than CO2 over 20 years, even though CO2 sticks around longer. Many methane reduction efforts work by tying firms' financial performance to their emissions. In a previous post, we discussed how a methane fee like the one proposed by Senators Whitehouse, Booker and Schatz would do this. Firms are also voluntarily reducing emissions, getting their emissions certified, and asking for a price premium for their "low emissions" gas. They're also reducing emissions to avoid legal and regulatory risk associated with government mandates. To make ANY of these methane reduction incentives truly effective, they need to target measured methane emissions directly—not specific equipment or operational practices that MIGHT emit methane. The beauty of measurement-based incentives, like a methane emissions fee levied on verified emissions, or a monitoring requirement for low emissions gas certifications, is that they give