hi everyone my name is Alex Reich and I'm pleased to welcome you to the National academies of Sciences engineering and medicine and to our monthly webinar series climate conversations Pathways to action the national academies provide independent objective advice to inform policy with evidence spark progress and Innovation and confront challenging issues for the benefit of society in keeping with this Mission we're excited to host these conversations about issues relevant to policy action on climate change I'd like to acknowledge that the national Academy's Washington DC headquarters is physically housed on the traditional land of the no contact and Piscataway people's past and present the honor with gratitude the land itself and the people who have been at stewards throughout the generations we honor and respect the enduring relationship that exists between these peoples and Nations and this land and acknowledge that the expertise held by different Native communities is crucial to the work of understanding and addressing climate change today we're going to talk about how to address emissions of methane the second largest contributor to climate change the conversation will be recorded and available to view right here after the event if you'd like to ask questions please submit them in the box below the video at any time and we'll incorporate them in a dedicated question and answer period in the final half hour we also encourage you to participate in the polls that will appear in that same location and to give your feedback after the event in the survey linked above the video above you'll also see a link to sign up for our Weekly Newsletter all about the upcoming Academy's climate activities of which there are many as well as information about our March 30th climate conversation which is about how to prepare for the consequences of tipping points or abrupt changes in human and natural systems as well as how to encourage positive social tipping points we've also listed a few academies reports relevant to today's topic including our new study on atmospheric methane removal if you want to engage more with that study check out the study website today though today though we're focusing on reducing emissions of methane which has to happen first and with that in mind I'm grateful to be joined by Rebecca Lieber a senior reporter covering climate change for a box Rebecca is going to introduce our conversationalists and moderate today's event thank you again for joining the national academies for climate conversations Rebecca the floor is yours thanks Alex this is a great conversation to be having an incredibly topical um on methane emissions which deserve more attention than it gets methane accounts for around 20 of global greenhouse gases just behind carbon dioxide and it's responsible for about a third of global warming that we've seen since the Industrial Revolution since methane is more potent but short-lived than carbon dioxide this is something that Humanity can take immediate action on to make a difference in climate change there are many man-made sources of methane that we'll be talking about today um and talking about the role that methane emissions play in climate change but also we can what we can do about this uh in the private sector public sector and as individuals so to help us cover this ground we are joined by two experts um Fiji George is senior director for climate and sustainability at cheniere energy he has spent more than 28 years of experience covering energy environmental and sustainability issues in natural gas production processing transmission and liquefied natural gas Fiji is speaking today as an individual not representing Chenier energy and we also have Stephen Hamburg a senior vice president and chief scientist at environmental defense fund where he ensures the scientific Integrity of evf's positions and programs facilitates collaborations with researchers and helps it identify emerging science relevant to edf's mission for the last decade he's coordinated efforts to quantify methane emissions from the natural gas value chain around the world so we have a really packed program today and in a opportunity at the end for questions but um let's just do some table setting here for to catch everyone up to speed so we're starting from the same place Steve can you start with the basics explaining what is unique about methane and why we don't hear as much about it as we do carbon dioxide sure so methane as you said is responsible for about a third of the warming that we're currently experiencing but it's different from CO2 in terms of its greenhouse gas properties because it reacts in the atmosphere so it only lasts about a decade so we refer to it as a short-lived climate pollutant as opposed to CO2 which lasts for centuries so it's always been sort of thought of as the the the the Lesser issue but yet if we think about the role that methane plays of emissions this year so what we're going to greenhouse gases what we realize is that over the next 20 years methane will dominate the warming that results from those emissions so if we care about the rate of warming in the near term and slowing it down methane is the most important greenhouse gas and because it's short-lived if we reduce those emissions now we'll see those impacts very those benefits very quickly so it's a powerful greenhouse gas 120 times more powerful kilogram to kilogram 80 more than 80 times more impactful over 20 years after it's emitted relative to CO2 and it's a big big lever for reducing the rate of warming in the near term foreign could you walk us through what the major sources for methane are um and cover both natural and human activity how that contributes to methane emissions sure thanks Rebecca thanks for having me on thanks to the NES staff so methane emissions can be either anthropogenic or human related or natural or origin so human related activities include oil and gas livestock manure management landfills coal mines um and natural sources are from Wetlands uh wildfires geological sources and so on uh so uh current estimates rough estimates uh of methane globally is about 575 million tons uh with antibodynamic sources accounting for about 60 percent uh and naturally about 40 percent um so that that is that's the type of sources we're dealing with and uh and uh and there are different ways to measure emissions uh there there are something called uh bottom-up uh measurement which is from the ground uh up using engineering and accounting methods there are top-down uh atmospheric methods uh to model and invert observations so there are different ways how we account for these uh these numbers um I think the next question was where does it come from so as I mentioned about 60 is is is human related the uh out of that uh the fossil fuel sector that is oil and gas and coal account for about 40 of the total uh which with each coal oil and gas accounting for about 40 million tons each uh and then you've got about 10 million tons roughly from uh biomass bioenergy uh the ACT sector of the anthropogenic total accounts for about 56 percent uh with livestock uh accounting for about 200 million tons uh rice cultivation about 30 and about landfills about 65 million so that's the type of distribution on the anthropogenic site we can say with feed for a minute because I'd love to hear what brought you to working on this issue and talk a bit about what interested what interests both of you in in looking and studying methane right so I've been in this business for is about over 25 plus years in the industry so my first foray into methane admissions was when I was working as a young engineer um several decades ago for my former company called El Paso energy which is not part of the Kingdom organ family so in the in the late 90s and early 2000s the focus on methane was indirect and it was primarily to reduce losses and accounted for gas so in a pipeline system what what it's basically the physical balance of gas coming in and gas delivery and so the focus was more in terms of a commercial driver to reduce that loss in accounting for gas so concurrently around about around that time the U.S EPA had embarked on a voluntary program called natural gas star which focused on deploying cost-effective Solutions sharing best practices and and and and since those days I've had the Good Fortune of engaging with uh industry folks colleagues from the government and other ngos and entities and Visionaries like you know Steve Hamburg over here and and had the fortune also to work on a lot of national and international uh uh greenhouse gas studies including methane uh and including the two uh National academies report that I served on yeah so I I've got I got involved uh really thinking about a problem we had as we were working on the Waxman Marquee Bill and as I left Academia to for the environmental defense fund I realized that in the thinking about that bill we weren't considering time and we were thinking about climate change is a long-term problem that would take long term to solve and we missed we were missing an opportunity that we could slow the rate of warming because we had short-lived climate pollutants of which methane is overwhelmingly dominant and if we reduce those sooner that would have a very positive effect in slowing the rate of warming as I described earlier but at the same time so this is about uh now it's hard for me to believe 14 years ago um we had so little data we really didn't know how much methane was being emitted we weren't measuring it so we started to think about what would it take to define the problem and start to solve it which means start reducing methane emissions now and trying to slow that rate of warming and as we did that we realized we needed to catalyze the scientific Community around the world so at this point we've worked with hundreds of scientists in many countries around the world we started in the US with a series of studies uh at the beginning of the of the tens to quantify it and that resulted in numerous uh scientific papers more than 150 collaborators to really start to put numbers and as I as anybody will know that it's a lot the missions were much higher we were looking primarily at oil and gas because that's the place we can do the fastest reductions but the data now shows that we could reduce methane emissions globally by uh pretty much a half with existing technology and that would dramatically slow the rate of warming and that's a tool we didn't recognize we had and that's what's pushing me to to really focus on methane thinking about solutions to a time when the world is just now starting to take action and um maybe you could catch us up to speed here because I'd love to get into your um recent work with methane set and um we are definitely going to get into all the observational data and satellites that are starting to launch around this so um I could you could you kind of lay the groundwork of what we're seeing with observational data um how that's evolved in the last few years sure so as we recognized and we being the scientific Community recognized that we needed far better data we needed empirical data to understand what where those emissions were coming from um we developed the tools as Fiji referred to for doing top down using aircraft uh using bottom-up methods both uh engineering calculations but also measurements on the ground and and those were really improving our understanding which was a powerful and there's been a lot of discussion about the the differences between top down and bottom up and in fact we've shown you can balance them right you can use these different methods and come to the common answer um which is very which is very reassuring but we couldn't we we the community really worked aggressively uh over a few years to build these Technologies and to build this capacity but the problem was you just couldn't make enough studies in enough time to over enough time to really create a clear picture so two half shots of what was going and they were very useful they helped us understand it but we needed the motion picture we needed to understand how much is being emitted where it's being emitted and how it's being those emissions are changing over time if we're going to be able to take the rapid action we need to take the only way we could have that scale of data and access because we can't do these studies around the world very easily in many places was to do it with satellites and so we uh at the environmental defense fund uh made a commitment to building a high Precision satellite because that the necessary data to to resolve these questions wasn't going to be fully available there are some great satellites out there but we needed better data more precise greater spatial resolution so over my right shoulder actually is a model of methane sat that we'll be launching within the year that will give us this data free of charge to everybody in the world it will cover all of the oil and gas production globally and provide high quality spatially resolved data for the first time Eddie how much of a game changer do you do you see this being in terms of how we are collecting different data sets on emissions where it's coming from yes it is a game changer right I mean I I just I still remember reading Gabby Patron and Anna corian's uh first study that was the first Swisher that I know of taking measurements and and comparing it with inventories and saying well uh industry you've got a problem of mismatch right so that was wrong with circuit 2013 and we're 10 years later and and Steve's talking about satellites and and this move Technologies so we've got to give credit where credit is do you uh edif has done a lot of work in this space uh and and brought this thing uh to a spotlight but also the government also has done a lot of things like the government Arbor e uh monitor program that is uh brought forth uh great Technologies from gas mapping lidar to drones to Lasik based ground Technologies in addition to a lot of these satellites so there's a multitude of uh Technologies out there now action year we invested a program called qmrb and one of the key goals is to concurrently apply Technologies from satellites to ground-based Technologies and assess the efficacy of these technologies that is taught us a lot and it's been almost a two-year campaign uh of collecting the data and synthesizing and we've got two papers one is already published and the other one in preprint and the key key important finding from that work is you need not just satellites but you need a slew of Technologies working together and aligning the data sets and this goes back to a fundamental point that was in the nas 2022 GSG study that you need to bring all these data sets it's one thing to have all these Technologies collecting measurements it's another thing of bringing all these data sites synthesizing it creating a harmonious harmonized set of information and and the nas study pointed out we need all the data sets needs to be to adhere to to six pillars to make a decision useful for decision makers whether you're a CEO of a company or a CEO of of an NGO or or a head of a government agency so those six pillars uh are from timeliness usability transparency ability to replicate and validate completeness and so on so it's it's a game changer right you know satellites are a game changer it's going to look at data sets uh that never could be got before but also we should recognize there's a whole smooth technologies that are required they all need to be synthesized uh and and and and and and and produce decision useful information consistent with the NES recommendations and I might jump in here a second because for methane the good news is we've got exactly that system in place now with the international methane emissions Observatory which is part of the UN environment program uh announced two years ago a little over two years ago at the at the G20 uh and um it's funded by the European commission the U.S government um and it is it's single mandate is to bring all of this methane data together the satellite data the bottom update of the Fiji described the voluntary data through the oil and gas methane partnership where companies are are bringing their own data in um to be able to um bring all of this together to create a single portal with an integrated data system that allows you to be able to understand how much is being emitted and where it's being emitted that's a game changer we don't have that for any other greenhouse gas and I think it's setting the pattern for how we need to do that across greenhouse gases but but that's the vision of a wide range of folks from companies to the government to unip to Really and then the governments to how do we bring all this data together exactly to what Fiji said that's so Central because we need to not end up in discussions about my data set versus your data set but really have a trusted independent source told transparency yeah you're you're both touching on similar sides of this issue so I hear this language of needing a motion picture of methane emissions also this this kind of constellation of of data that we need from the very top to uh bottom up measuring on the ground and um I want to connect this to the policy because that's a big part of the discussion today um and before we get into that I just want to remind the audience that there will be a a chance to ask questions so um please start putting those questions in to uh slido in the box below the video um so um this is this is the fun part of the conversation nerding out over the policy and um I wanted to ask both of you what where existing policy is today in the U.S with regards to methane emissions and where does it need to be what are the gaps here um let's um yeah I think I'll throw that for starters to Fiji sure thanks Rebecca so uh the U.S has as you know there there it
is committed to the global methane pledge and has enacted many policies domestically uh specifically for the oil and gas sector you know we we've got reporting the reporting rules to mandatory reduction of uh of methane emissions uh through to the Clean Air Act and also the first ever uh price on carpet through the methane feed so we have a slew of regulatory activities uh up and up and running and and besides that you know I also mentioned the department of energy is also very involved and engaged especially from the technology front that the the support they gave for rpe uh Monitor and so on uh and and EPA has also had voluntary programs so the question is what else is needed right and and so the first point was we discussed that uh the NES 2022 report did recommend uh like like the imeo uh an entity that would be a Clearinghouse uh of of sort of disseminating data and and producing unbiased data sets now besides imeo recently uh the energy emissions modeling data lab was was announced it's a Consortium led by University of Texas at Austin Colorado State University Colorado School of Mines with with initial funding from uh entities like cheniere and others Now goal of goal of amdo and is is not to replicate what IMU is doing but is to create models and data sets to integrate and help companies and and government agencies to undertake the analysis so so first is that the the second thing I would say is we need sound regulations and policies and we touched on this the IE estimates about 260 BCM uh being cubic meter of matching gas is lost it's preventive playering uh uh and and leaks so after this 210 could be uh could be captured and if we eliminate not an emergency flaring and reduce uh methane emissions uh a work that as Steve's organization funded with uh with s p Global and that's it just in the next 24 to 36 months 40 BCM off gas could be captured economically and and this is this is really important so we've got to start thinking about policies just beyond our Shores uh the EU has proposed uh programs like you collect we buy schemes to and create reductions from countries especially in the African countries like Algeria Libya Nigeria and Egypt with the spare export capacity so we need to be supportive of these kind of policies and and so on and and third is besides the regulatory uh mechanisms we we also should consider all of the above voluntary schemes but any voluntary scheme for differentiated gas or responsible gas should should adhere to one the nas 2022 principles of of using data number two adhere to the transfer transfer reporting framework like ojp 2.0 and number three the data set that is is is estimated to produce needs to be sticking with with empirical data sets and you know entities like imeo the energy emissions blotting data lab are geared to support that kind of uh and it's super important for all of us to understand that if we're supporting Beyond regulations policies right not just regulations but regulations plus and involuntary we've got to ensure that what one is buying through these differentiated scheme adheres to these these key standards and and finally I I want to emphasize that we've got to have a worldview beyond the U.S borders right and this is why it's super important to support in my mind entities like lgmp 2.0 uh imeo so where where we can work collectively to find better Solutions and share best practices and also be humble enough to learn from these countries and entities so those are some of my initial thoughts yeah and I wanted to ask ask you Steve specifically on the inflation reduction act because it does um put some policies in place for the first time around methane emissions absolutely um and and I think uh sort of building on what uh what Fiji said within the uh the inflation reduction act Ira um it really does something that I think is revolutionary um in that the greenhouse gas reporting program that we have here in the U.S that EPA runs it has an explicit mandate that that data be collected empirically and be demonstrated to be accurate and so what that does is really flip it around from what Fiji described earlier as these engineering calculations that have been the standard that we know systematically underestimate emissions but even equally important don't give us a real clear picture of where they're occurring because we're using generalized numbers multiplying those out and so these data that that will be developed over the next two years they have to they're wired in under the IRA to be done in 24 will start to give us the ability to track in a much more accurate way the emissions that are occurring and how they're changing over time and then there's a fee associated with those emissions uh under under the IRA so I think that's a really big deal not just because of the fee and and making it cost to Emit and we know that you do not have to admit that the the the ability to produce and transport natural gas can be done with minimal emissions that that there when we did our first big study now a decade ago with 12 different teams in the Barnett what was striking in that early data sets these were the first comprehensive data sets of their kind a third of the sites were really clean you know they may not have all been zero but they were really close to it and then it went up from there and the point was why were those third sites clean and were the others uh emitting and that's what we didn't have the data on so we really need that level of granularity and the requirements for Greenhouse grass reporting program will start to help us get that data and then of course we have the regulations Fiji referred to that are currently proposed they have not yet fully been implemented but that would be critical because we currently have regulations on new oil and gas production facilities but these regulations extend it to all of them and critical in those proposed regulations is that it covers all facilities people tend to think that it's only about the big new wells that are producing the high amounts but in fact um data that we've collected a metadata analysis from across many studies shows that half the emissions come roughly half the commissions in the U.S from oil and gas
production come from marginal Wells that represent 80 percent of the wells but six percent of the production so we need to deal with the whole system not just the obvious large portion large producing Wells um yeah we're so we're talking a lot about the oil and gas sector here and there was an International Energy agency report just yesterday on methane from the oil and gas sector and it was a pretty bleak picture saying that methane emissions remain stubbornly high and that it could be reduced 75 percent with existing Technologies and it's actually pretty cheap for companies to be doing this um the iea says less than three percent of the income accrued by oil and gas companies last year could make that 100 billion dollar investment in the Technologies needed so um Fiji you you spoke a bit about um the regulatory scheme and also voluntary measures that the industry is taking but are those enough and why aren't we maybe seeing the progress that we would expect at this point uh sure so there are multiple reasons why uh why action has not happened as fast as we and all hope for so let me start off with one observation so industry in general the thinking has evolved on methane emissions right yeah right if if you read the public comments filed on the EP supplementary rule uh the whether it's the American particular music API or the the trade Association for the gas transmission industry Inga they all support clear and reasonable Federal Federal Regulations right it's stark contrast to 10 years 10 10 12 years ago right so people the industry I believe has evolved in its thinking and are not making commitments a lot of oil and gas companies have made commitments to not just methane emissions but also Net Zero commitments so now this clearly shows the industry is evolving and moving in the right direction now the comments that they're their focus on are all technical in nature but in general it's supportive the second the second point I I want to emphasize and this is this is from research that we just did and it's it's out in in preprint uh by car and it's it's under Daniel Daniels at Al will Daniels and then the Colorado School of might's team so what we found in an 11-month campaign of of continuous measurements using multiple Technologies from satellites all the way through through domes at five operators and three bases these are Chenier so these are entities that Supply gas engineer and what we found is when the co when the when the companies were provided data the emissions from where we started and where the project measurements ended the numbers went down so to the evidence is that when companies are provided good measurement empirical quality data they will act on it if we continue to rely on outdated emission factor-based data sets people fully do not understand what is being lost and so sometimes actual measurements give them ideas not just to set up their reduction strategies but also immediately act and reduce so so lack of data access that understanding the data data sets that are being produced those are two things that I think have helped companies evolve so those are some of the reasons I would say a why action has not happened and then our focus is also lastly the focus has been mostly in the U.S or North America and and the EU there are different regions and the the ime the uh IA report you mentioned talked about uh other countries like especially the African countries and so on which are launch producers that that needs to that needs to have these actions undertaken so just signing off you've got 150 countries sign up to Global method pledge a pledge is not good enough you need real actions behind that we're going to return to oil and gas and the global stage here um but I'd be remiss if I didn't touch on agriculture um because that's also a major source for methane I believe it's about a third of U.S methane emissions and um Steve um I hope you could talk a bit about these other sources of methane so uh livestock landfills and what can be done here sure before I know there were some questions about just we've we've unfortunately used our acronyms and slid into them so I Neo is international methane emissions Observatory and ogmp is oil and gas methane partnership that that's a voluntary program both of those are part of the United Nations environment program effort um and that program that effort it includes other sources because we do have to think about it not just from fossil fuels or specifically oil and gas and the um the enteric emissions fermentation emissions so that's ruminants like cows eating a forage grasses things that are hard to digest and in their gut they're producing methane the bank the microbes in the gut the microbiome is producing methane that comes up through their mouths um and that amount of methane varies by the quality of the forage what are they what are they eating and uh what environment how healthy they are so one of the things you can do is by manipulating those conditions you can reduce the relative proportion of methane that's produced there are currently some additives that are being looked at that you could add to their feed uh there's a red algae there are different types of of compounds that have been looked at to be able to basically shift the gut biome enough to reduce the methane emissions so that's a big chunk of those emissions are coming from ruminants um we also have waste you pile up the waste the manure from animals and it goes It goes without oxygen it's anaerobic and you get a lot of methanogenous so you get a lot of production of methane so how you handle that manure makes a big difference we have the same phenomena in landfills you put all your garbage together in a place you cut off oxygen supply and then the organic matter breaks down and produces methane um so those are the dominant sources as we as we heard from Fiji earlier and we need to think about all of them they're they're not all as easy to to mitigate but we can mitigate to some degree all all of those sources and that's why when we talk about making reductions of you know 50 percent it's because we can't uh we can't we don't have the technology immediately to zero out all those emissions for fossil fuels we can do it sooner and I'll just add in terms of that some people say well why bother with fossil fuels because we want to decarbonize we need to get rid of fossil fuels the point is time even on their most aggressive schedules of reducing fossil fuels there's still advantage to reducing the methane emissions now because it's so important we can slow the rate of warming while we're decarbonizing and then we get a double win um and for Animals we want to do we want to reduce those as fast as we can that's going to be a slower process but we wanted we were we're all committed to doing that also I should have mentioned rice production you flood rice to produce it and that's another major source as Fiji mentioned of methane production uh wow I don't hear about that one very often actually um so I we're going to move on to what looking out ahead what can be done because what um we've touched on a lot is um the different sources for methane so oil and gas sector agriculture landfills uh rice production and um but the reason we're talking about this now is because methane is something we can take action on on a very on a time scale uh that's shorter than what we normally talk about with climate change that we're seeing the climate changing here and now and in the next 10 to 20 years we do need to see methane emissions come down dramatically so um for this next part um I wanted to hone in a bit on oil and gas because that is an area where there's lots of agreement that a lot more can be done here um so hone in a bit here um gas is also used as a major fuel for space heating water heating and cooking and right now there's there's a lot of ambition to decarbonize our infrastructure which means cutting could mean in the future cutting off new construction and existing construction from gas pipes leading into buildings um and I wanted to get both of you your takes on the the challenges facing that transition and maybe framing a very hot topic for us which has been a very hot topic for media lately which is gas stoves of how big of a deal that might be in in the scheme of gas infrastructure um so um Fiji I'd love to hear your take on that okay so let me start off with uh the you know how do we consider the role of natural gas in as we decarbonize right so so currently globally speaking you know 80 percent uh of the energies provided by fossil fuel uh and so as we think about decarbonizing we should recognize the changing Regulatory and policy Landscapes and geopolitical conditions and also the the points that you're bringing up uh the the policies in in the US and elsewhere but fundamentally uh well in the world the world will call for the most economical and the most secure source of energy Supply whether that energy is supplied by other clients from uh from Renewables or nuclear or or even gas or BTUs from fossil fuel that is to be decided by policy so when we talk about uh things like gas stoves and and other kind of policies personally I I must I'm a strong advocate of using science to to lead and direct the policy and we should consider and concerns of all part all parties right so in in my opinion why stoves matter is is the point that Rob Jackson with Stanford mentioned right stoves resonate with people because you can see to see the blue flame right over there but let's have some context also you know it's it's 28 000 metric tons of emissions from gastos versus the U.S national uh total of about 6.5 million
tons but it does it but it clearly means that we need to have the psycho Community institutional bodies like the EPA uh OSHA who others who are tasked to protect our environment and health and safety to come up and understand assess all these uh policies that come up with the appropriate safeguards personally I think it's a perfect study topic for the Academies so um I might jump in and I just can't help but refer to the room I'm sitting in which is I'm in a house that's uh over 120 years old and when this room was built it had gas lights we transitioned to electrons fairly quickly early in its life um and no one thought about it and basically that's the model we need to do when we think about heating things because we have the technology readily available to shift this house we have this room is heated by a heat pump um to go away from molecules of methane in this case to electrons we can do that we have the technology we do need to organize how we capitalize it because we don't have it but we have done this before this very house has seen just such a radical transformation within the 120 years and we need to do it again because natural gas is not ultimately uh the really the ideal fuel particularly in a decarbonized economy for running homes and Commercial big industrial Industries that's a different story their their electrons can many times are not effective so we really need to think about how we do that we have to produce that electricity in a reliable way Renewables are critical part we need clean firm power to go with it but those are all things that we have options and optionality to to address so I think the notion that that we would have gas in our houses is over the long term I think is one that's not consistent with the science as Fiji says I think it's important we have great we have strong options right now for moving on to the next generation of cleaner that makes our houses internally cleaner and makes our environment cleaner and the climate more stable so I think that that that's one where we do have a lot of a lot of data to suggest the path forward and the the one America project out of Princeton I think showed this very dramatically in the modeling they've done for every state and county in the U.S and so green washing looking looking Ahead Green washing is also a big concern that there are Industries more intent on on showing uh talking about their progress than actually delivering on concrete results um so Fiji I wondered what you what you would say to Skeptics that look at what the oil and gas industry is doing and think of it as more greenwashing if we're not stopping all stopping oil and gas production entirely so uh first of all you know I want to emphasize the point that I've mentioned right before that is 80 of the current Energy Mix is is fossil fuel base right now I depending on the decarbonization's uh scenarios and I'm using the IE scenario uh there is even in a 1.5 degree scenario called The Net Zero emission scenario there is a rule for gas right but that also calls for 75 reduction in methane emissions by 2030 application of uh ccs and so on so we need to really really cognizant about where we get our energy from and the level of effort that needs to be there never mind the transition is to be orderly in transit uh just and so on we we need to that's the first point the second thing is when uh when when the industry is talking about reduction strategies I completely subscribe to the philosophy that you know you cannot make aspirational goal you got to make actionable right goals are important but it needs to rematch with right action right action needs right data sets credible data sets and and actually you know we completely subscribe to the principles that uh that the nas committee laid out right the data set has to be useful timely transparent validated complete inclusive and it is included communicated so we impart on a two plus year study multi-million dollar study with our suppliers key suppliers uh a sample of suppliers to understand what could be done and and one of the key conclusions after that was we need uh we need a body that that the nas suggested a repository or Clearinghouse that synthesizes analyze data once a data set is given companies can make right informed decisions not based on uh guesstimated numbers or not based on one one level of branding of gas versus the other level of branding of gas so we need those kind of institutional infrastructures the scientific infrastructure to get this done so only then right you know cheniere we don't subscribe to yet to anything that is a responsibly Source Gas or differentiated product and so on we are trying to get the analytics in place the science in place to help us inform that and we we do something called cargo emission text which is using the best data set that we have provide our customers the information our supplies the information so they can undertake action for us information is key information has to be built on on the principles the nas setup and and we need to adhere to uh coming up with actionable uh uh programs and not aspirational so I I would concur with that and but we also have to recognize that it's both we need these uh real reductions we've also seen um companies uh using what I'll refer to as wishful thinking that in talking about because of these calculations we're much lower than we are that the empirical data says can't be true um and so the key is getting the data but also recognizing where as we talked before where fossil fuels have a future because as Fiji says there's a role but that the role will be diminishing and as we talked about um you know the urban environment is not a probably a good place there was a recent paper two years ago in the precedings National Academy of Science that looked at Urban regions in the U.S showing the very high uh emissions across urban areas which accounts for about the urban areas outside of industry and generation is about a third of the usage that's just really not a good use we need to double down and reduce using those uses there will be places where it'll be hard to remove it but we got to do it quickly and we do have to create this transparency we complete agreement on the data and we'll actually be flying methane air which is a an aircraft version of methane sat over the next few months measuring methane emissions from essentially every oil and gas station in the U.S mapping them will have the first complete emissions inventory for the U.S empirically based uh within the year and so these kinds of data then just really call out the way Fiji talked about here's the data here's the size of the problem now we've got to measure ourselves against that empirical data and are we making progress so um thank you both we have received a lot of questions here um so I'd like to get through at least basically as many as we can um so um one area that we haven't touched on yet that has come up is permafrost um which is um so melting permafrost being a source of methane and this is can be um this is a natural but also large and unexpected contributor to methane emissions so um Steve could you walk us through how concerning this is melting permafrost certainly it's something we worry about the current data does actually not indicate so if we look at the Arctic and the data from um global data atmospheric data there is not currently a an indication that we are seeing a big up tee in methane emissions from the Arctic unlike actually in the tropics where we are seeing a large uptick there's still some debate if it's from tropical Wetlands or and or contributed from increased emissions from enteric fermentation um but it is a big concern there's a lot of increased work on how to measure those emissions and keep track of them there have been an additional focus on making measurements so we're seeing measurements in lakes and some particularly in Russia where we're seeing um big events with methane but those do not add up into the atmospheric record at this point as showing a major transition at this point in time is it something worried about absolutely but that's the advantage if we can reduce methane emissions we reduce that rate of warming and we reduce the probability that we'll start to see large amount ounce of meth income coming out of the Arctic and then permafrostic region yeah so control what we can control here yeah I I hear that and um we didn't get it to spend a ton of time on landfills so um Steve just to stay with you for a minute um landfills are another really important source for methane besides Agriculture and besides oil and gas but um it is maybe it's coming from fewer distributed sources um so so less spread around um than talking about everyone's individual home um so what might be some solutions for addressing waste and landfills and and their methane emissions so there'll be two strategies that we have to think about is how to manage the existing landfills and and capping them and collecting it's really hard to be totally um effective in that but we can reduce those emissions and there are EPA regulations that already acquire it and um there is efforts now to collect the first comprehensive data sets on methane emissions from uh carbon mapper another NGO is collecting data currently um we'll be doing some with our own tools um there's a big effort in Canada to do similar kinds of measurements uh so that's one thing we can do is what's ha again documenting transparency and then working on really tightening up the operations of landfills the troubles we also have a legacy of landfills older ones more dispersed ones that could also be producing we don't have good data on those in terms of what we can do moving forward is we really want to remove the organic matter from landfills so we're not bringing the the substrate that's being converted into methane that was carbon sources and um you know people really we need to really collect that organic matter separately process it compost it in Aerobic conditions so it doesn't produce methane and it becomes a resource so those are the two things we're seeing more of that we need to do more of it and we need like all of these we need better data so we really can understand where the problems we one thing you can be sure of when you look at methane emissions from any American city you're going to see a large Source from every landfill in every major metropolitan area when you fly over it and you measure methane that's one thing you can count on so we [Music] um we also um should get more into the international side of this because methane is coming from um other countries as well and um Fiji you were talking about this earlier um I I hope you could expand on the extent that cut that we're seeing Nations making explicit commitments around reducing methane in their own climate targets um and maybe bring in the global methane pledge which they was rolled out at the uh I believe two International climate conferences ago um and talk about what kind of international action we're seeing from countries to reduce those methane emissions sure so um the global methane pledge calls for 30 by 2030. uh that's from all methane
sources and and obviously oil and gas is is primed as we've been talking for for reductions so what has been happening internationally you know sir some of the some of the things we talked about uh was the uh the imeo being set up uh and then the voluntary initiative uh supported by the EU the US and under the U.N auspicious quality oil and gas methane partnership 2.0 which which provides for the first time an international framework to bring in empirical data sets so all that is happening besides that we have the global method initiative which is which has been going on for uh several years and then we've got countries that are now stepping up uh and and you've heard all the things that the US is trying to do from using the Clean Air Act to the to the methanephibo uh the the rules and the proposals from doe and others there's a lot of action happening in Europe too um and and Europe uh especially is looking at methane from multiple sectors multiple angles one is within the porters and one is outside Europe Imports most of their energy right so so how are they going to be using their purchasing power to reduce uh methane emissions that occur outside the borders so they're been thinking about different concepts uh you pay uh we collect is is one concept that that has been uh taught about uh as part of the the EU strategy besides that uh remember there is the shipping segment is also a key source so you transport gas or oil to these destination countries in these big ships they are also a source of emissions and so there are rules being proposed in in Europe and it's it's gone it's past the commission the parliament uh and and and and they're all they're all going to come in together to improve the accounting of not just improve the accounting of emissions that includes methane for a change but also tie in that with the EU ETS uh so EU ETS is up trading for about 100 euros a ton now can you define that because I I don't even know that acronym oh uh the European Union has got an emissions trading system and it's been on for uh several years and and so basically the emissions from the ships uh have to be accounted for and then the ship owners have to buy emission allowances uh to uh to comply so the European Union is definitely uh uh taking charge on on addressing methane emissions and so are other countries that you know I should not I should also emphasize there are different countries like Nigeria and so on that have proposed uh rules so uh you can see the collective action that is happening I think it's time for uh all of us to engage and at and and entities like the imeo entities like EDF the the the emissions data Lab at the University of Texas that I mentioned all to come in to support these policies and and companies uh whether you're where your landfill comes company or an oil and gas company we all take a collective responsibility to address these things I might just add sure I know we want to get into other questions that a couple of specific examples for the global methane pledge is announced at the last cop uh the methane alert and response system so identifying large emission sources and notifying countries and companies uh when possible uh well we know where the country is but the company that Associated to get action quickly so that's one concrete example that's happening and you also see countries like New Zealand very focused on AG emissions they they're also a partner in methane sat with us so they're trying to collect better data so we're seeing action on on agriculture as well and we're seeing alert systems how to get good data uh occurring on a regular basis um and I want to talk a bit about the so communication came up in questions of how how um scientists and experts can talk about this issue and present this um to all kinds of audiences so um one question touched on high school students as as an audience but also trying to transcend Beyond um the science and engineering world to other kinds of settings for for policy discussions um so I think a great example is one of the questions we got is um how much would methane reduction actually affect global warming I think this is a great example question for how how to communicate on that effectively um and make make that very clear to people outside of the science community so maybe I can take that on so if we really do get aggressive about methane and meet the The Pledge uh commitments and a bit more we can see uh up to three tenths of a degree celsius knocked off of what we would otherwise see in a in a couple of decades that is a big number and uh in the climate World it feels small but boy compared to you know we're talking about all these impacts with with slightly over one degrees these degrees Celsius one degree Celsius so that's a big impact potential um and uh and and so those are big the other thing that I'd like to describe it is is we have to recognize that we have two climate problems our near-term climate problem and our long-term climate problem and the near term one is driven by dominated by methane and the long-term one is dominated by CO2 we got to solve both problems the near term one is about what's going to happen in my lifetime and my daughters and the long-term one is what's going to happen should I have grandchildren who have grandchildren well ethically and it's not a science problem we need to solve both of those and we're not going to trade one for the other we can do it by focusing on methane and CO2 at the same time we can actually get really positive results and accelerate uh the addressing the worst of climate change yeah Rebecca in the 2022 study communication clear and concise communication was was one of the key pillars in our Nas study right it's it's great for us Steve and I write peer-reviewed paper and then get stuff published right but how do you convert that into decision useful information for all to understand and and the point there Steve mentioned you know you you knock off methane with known Technologies you get about 0.2.3 degree uh Centigrade knocked off which it's huge right uh think of think about it from a flaring standpoint right you know there's gas flaring and so on the Ia and the report that you mentioned earlier just by preventing non-routine flaring and venting you can capture 200 billion cubic meter of gas that could be brought into the markets that's that's that's that's a volume that's significantly higher than the gas imports from Russia right prior to the Russian convention so we got to convert all the math and the signs into digestible forms and and and and and that is super important for us to do that and you know my kids use tick tock right you know sometimes everything should be uh you know put into bite size information and and one thing I'd just add with and that communication is we work um of a team of social psychologists who work with us and we do the experiments to actually how to communicate this data how do people perceive it make sure they can see it to fiji's point that it's actionable and it makes an enormous difference and we've demonstrated that in numerous projects we absolutely have to it's not about publishing papers it's about what I like to call the data to action pipeline papers going in the front end but we got to get action at the bottom end and we need to have professionals and across many disciplines to effectively cause that uh to work very effective to work effectively which it can I think we're demonstrating that now we just need a bigger and bigger pipe um yeah speaking of effective communication I moved very quickly past the rice cultivation point that you made Steve so could you just explain why rice cultivation is a major source for methane sure so the way you uh really use most rice there is some Upland but most rice is is produced with flooding a field creating these anaerobic these areas without oxygen that encourages bacteria that produce methane so one of the ways that you can reduce those methane emissions significantly is by not having the the field flooded for the same amounts of time you go through wetting and drying periods it still allows the rice to grow well and there have been efforts to do that across the globe Mekong Delta and Vietnam here in the United States we do have to be careful because we also we can help reduce methane but we can inadvertently produce more n2o because of how the nitrogen and carbon Cycles are linked and that n2o is another potent greenhouse gas a long-lived one but you can do it and one of the the key ways is to manage rice differently and do it with carefully which the data is now emerging how to do that so that we can reduce methane emissions and again the problem is we don't have uh Rob Jackson was mentioned recently he just produced a paper that showed sort of the best data we have to date about how much methane is coming off of rice and uh we don't have as much data as we want so for example with methane sat we'll be measuring rice emissions with the satellite so we can get our first really Global take on that um and and that becomes critical because again then we have good data we understand how those emissions are changing over time and where we could have improved practices foreign a question we got was about what regulation can do to reconcile this discrepancy between what we think is being emitted based on our source level information and then what we're actually observing from satellites and flyovers um and in the atmosphere um how can regulation come in and reconcile those discrepancies yeah sure so we fortunately have that regulation under the uh the IRA methane feed Bill the ra method if you build requires as Steve mentioned the EPA to use empirical data sets and also it gives the option for companies to use empirical data sets so so that is a big motivation for companies to go generate their own data sets that represents their their facility and and what what we have seen even using EPA estimates uh when you have when you do bespoke analysis of your supply chains you know we do that for our questionnaire we buy gas from many many uh producers and bring it through different pipelines almost 58 ways to bring it to our two terminals Supply chains matter producing Permian operates differently from producing in in in in Appalachia so uh and similarly transmission company a pipeline built in the 40s is very different than a new transmission pipeline a new compressor station that's built so we need to have I mean that itself is an incentive and I would urge all my industry colleagues to get into empirical measurements uh and and that's one thing the second thing is you do the empirical measurements it needs to be converted and digested and analyzed by an independent scientific body that can come up with what we call measurement informed inventories right in in in my opinion in engineer's opinion that is an entity like the one I mentioned with the University of Texas then we also need to have the international framework and the body to report these things and some standards about that that is the OGB 2.0 that is the uh and then and another body to get all the data sets from different different locations different facilities that's the IMU so all these things work in tandem but it starts from using the IRA as the directive and incentive to get measurement otherwise Steve Hamrick will do that measurement for you yeah what um that relates to another question was which is we can have satellites that are detecting super emitter events around the world now um but how much does that what does that accomplish if we aren't then acting on that data so um is there any potential actions that can be taken to actually influence or or um I can see that countries are taking action on those super emitting events I I mean I'm thinking just of the nordstream pipeline here and it being a huge source for methane in the past year yeah so the Nordstrom was a huge uh huge event in that case there was nothing
2023-02-28