As the European Commission plans to unveil its strategy to reduce methane emissions in the European Union on 14 October, the NGO ‘Environmental Defense Fund’ (EDF) sent a letter to MEPs and Member States on Wednesday 23 September calling on them to support setting standards for methane emissions from gas sold in the EU.
“As the largest importer of internationally traded natural gas (47% of the global market), the EU is uniquely positioned to require stringent methane performance standards for all gas sold in the EU - a move that would catalyse immediate reductions of this potent climate pollutant around the world”, says Poppy Kalesi, director of the NGO and signatory of the letter.
Calling the fight against methane emissions a “climate urgency” (after carbon dioxide, methane is the second most important greenhouse gas contributing to climate change), EDFemphasises that environmental externalities, including methane emissions, are currently not reflected in the price of gas.
According to the organisation, this creates a major commercial and regulatory risk for domestic renewables, particularly in markets where the cost of electricity per megawatt-hour is currently up to five times higher than that of gas.
In a draft version of the methane strategy described in our articles (see EUROPE 12545/1), the Commission indicates that it “will study the feasibility and added value of possible targets or performance standards for natural gas as a means of further encouraging the reduction of methane emissions in the EU”, but without proposing any concrete initiative to this end.
The institution is of the opinion that it is first necessary to improve data from the fossil fuel industry on methane emissions resulting from leakage - through a legislative proposal on mandatory monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of all methane emissions - and then to encourage companies to combat such leakage.
However, according to Mrs Kalesi, experiences in the United States, Canada and Mexico have shown that “voluntary agreements [...] do not deliver methane emissions reductions at the scale of pace needed”.
According to the Commission, between 19 and 30% of global anthropogenic methane emissions come from the production and use of fossil fuels.
See the EDF’s letter: https://bit.ly/33S8uQA (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)