Sixty-two oil and gas companies, including BP, ENI, Shell and Total, agreed on Monday 23 November to step up their efforts to report their methane emissions with a much higher level of transparency, the European Commission and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) announced in a joint statement.
By signing, these companies commit to a new ‘Oil and Gas Methane Partnership’ (OGMP), an initiative led by UNEP, the European Commission and the Environmental Defence Fund.
Partnership 2.0 will consist of a new CH4 reporting framework to improve the accuracy and transparency of reporting on anthropogenic methane emissions in the oil and gas sector.
According to the statement, the framework will enable governments, investors and the public “to accurately track and compare performance across companies in ways that have not been possible to this point”.
Launching the initiative, European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson welcomed the commitment of the 62 companies as “the first deliverable under the Commission’s recent methane strategy”.
Furthermore, she recalled the Commission’s position that “a clear commitment to measure and monitor emissions is an important first step for significantly reducing them” (see EUROPE 12581/9). (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)