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Biden Administration Announces Rule to Cut Millions of Tons of Methane Emissions Biden Administration Announces Rule to Cut Millions of Tons of Methane Emissions
(32 minutes later)
The United States will, for the first time, require oil and gas producers to detect and fix leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that wafts into the atmosphere from pipelines, drill sites and storage facilities and dangerously speeds the rate of global warming. Vice President Kamala Harris pledged at a United Nations climate summit on Saturday that the United States would spend billions more to help developing nations fight and adapt to climate change, telling world leaders that “we must do more” to limit global temperature rise.
Michael S. Regan, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, announced the regulation in Dubai, where diplomats from nearly 200 nations have gathered for a two-week United Nations climate summit. Methane is not as widely discussed as the carbon dioxide that results from burning fossil fuels, but it has become a rare area of progress this week at the global talks. Her remarks followed an announcement by U.S. officials here earlier in the day that the federal government would, for the first time, require oil and gas producers to detect and fix leaks of methane.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the top-ranking American official to visit the summit, was expected on Saturday to highlight the new rule in a speech to delegates. She was also set to announce several other new climate policy initiatives from the administration. They included a pledge of $3 billion for a fund that helps developing nations adopt low-emission energy and adapt to climate change, along with a new initiative with Brazil, Kenya and India to strengthen clean-energy supply chains globally. It was the most ambitious move to reduce fossil fuel emissions that President Biden’s administration is expected to unveil at the summit. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that wafts into the atmosphere from pipelines, drill sites and storage facilities and dangerously speeds the rate of global warming.
The announcements seek to highlight Mr. Biden’s efforts to curb emissions, which have been far more aggressive than past presidents, at a time when delegates in Dubai are calling on the United States to move faster to reduce fossil fuel use and spend more to help the rest of the world cope with rising temperatures. Ms. Harris did not mention that new regulation in her remarks, which ran just under five minutes, and came before what was set to be an afternoon of sideline discussions with Middle Eastern leaders centered on the war between Israel and Hamas.
Mr. Biden has struggled to win congressional support for international climate finance pledges, and White House officials would not immediately say on Saturday when he would request money from the new pledge. But the vice president, who was a late addition to the summit after Mr. Biden decided to skip the talks, highlighted what she said was nearly $1 trillion in new spending approved under the Biden administration for clean energy and climate efforts. She pushed for world leaders to go even further.
Ms. Harris appeared to be nodding to tensions over wealthy nations’ climate ambitions in remarks prepared for delivery on Saturday. “We must have the ambition to meet this moment, to accelerate our investments and to lead with courage and conviction,” she said.
“We. Must. Do. More,” Ms. Harris planned to say, according to excerpts from her remarks made available by the White House. “The climate action our world has taken so far is historic. And it is not sufficient. As nations, to keep our critical 1.5 degree-Celsius goal within reach, we must have the ambition that is necessary to meet this moment.” While they welcomed the methane announcement, many activists at the summit criticized the Biden administration for not going further to end the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas. The United States has seen a surge of domestic oil production over the past year, and Mr. Biden has approved some new drilling leases that have drawn criticism from environmental groups.
“To keep global warming under internationally agreed limits, we need a fair, fast, and funded phase-out of fossil fuels,” Lorne Stockman, research director of the environmental group Oil Change International, said in a statement issued after the announcement. “So far, none of the methane actions announced by the U.S., the world’s largest oil and gas producer, meet the bar.”
Some groups at the summit also noted the fragility of Ms. Harris’s promise that the United States would send $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund, which benefits poorer nations. In the past, Republicans have blocked United States money for climate change work overseas, and the Biden administration has instead tapped discretionary funds within the State Department.
Mr. Biden has failed to persuade Congress to fulfill previous climate-assistance pledges. White House officials would not say on Saturday when or how the president would ask Congress to fund this new request, at a time when lawmakers are constrained by spending caps Mr. Biden negotiated with Republicans during a fight over the nation’s borrowing limit this year.
A formal Treasury Department announcement of the new pledge, which followed Ms. Harris’s remarks, noted that the $3 billion was “subject to the availability of funds.”
The methane rule, which was first announced at the COP28 summit by Michael S. Regan, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, came with more certainty: It is an administrative action that does not require the approval of Congress and is scheduled to take effect next year.
Methane is not as widely discussed as the carbon dioxide that results from burning fossil fuels, but it has become a rare area of progress this week at the global talks.
It is the second most abundant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide. Methane only lingers in the atmosphere about a decade after it is released, but it is about 80 times more powerful in the short term at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, which remains in the air for centuries.
Scientists say methane is responsible for more than a quarter of the warming that the planet has experienced since the preindustrial era. Cutting methane, they say, is essential to meeting the global goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a goal set in the Paris Agreement to avoid the worst effects of global warming, and acting now can help buy the planet time as nations grapple with the more contentious problem of slashing carbon dioxide emissions.
The new regulation would prevent 58 million tons of methane emissions by 2038, officials said. That’s about the equivalent of all the carbon dioxide emitted by American coal-fired power plants in a single year. Mr. Regan called it one of the most important policies the United States will have enacted to slow the rate of climate change over the next decade and a half.The new regulation would prevent 58 million tons of methane emissions by 2038, officials said. That’s about the equivalent of all the carbon dioxide emitted by American coal-fired power plants in a single year. Mr. Regan called it one of the most important policies the United States will have enacted to slow the rate of climate change over the next decade and a half.
“On Day One, President Biden restored America’s critical role as the global leader in confronting climate change, and today we’ve backed up that commitment with strong action, significantly slashing methane emissions and other air pollutants that endanger communities,” Mr. Regan said in a statement. The rule is set to take effect in early 2024. “I’ve met face to face with generations of family members who have been impacted by this pollution for far too long,” Mr. Regan said at a news conference in Dubai. “This is historic news for our climate.”
Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide. It only lingers in the atmosphere about a decade after it is released, but it is about 80 times more powerful in the short term at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, which remains in the air for centuries. Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, an environmental group, called the policy “the most impactful climate rule that the United States has ever adopted in terms of addressing temperatures we would otherwise see.”
Scientists say it is responsible for more than a quarter of the 1.4 degrees Celsius of warming that the planet has experienced since the preindustrial era. Cutting methane, they say, is essential to meeting the global goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and acting now can help buy the planet time as nations grapple with the more contentious problem of slashing carbon dioxide emissions.
John Kerry, President Biden’s global climate envoy, said in an interview before the summit that it was still possible to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, in large part because of global efforts to curb methane. The United States and Europe in 2021 launched a coalition that has grown to more than 150 countries that have agreed to cut 30 percent of methane emissions by 2030. That group is expected to add new members during the current summit in Dubai, known as COP28.
The United States and China also struck a deal last month in which China agreed to set a target for cutting methane, something it had yet to do despite methane accounting for about 40 percent of that country’s greenhouse gases.
The E.P.A. regulation is the largest new initiative to tackle climate change in the United States that is expected from the Biden administration during COP28. It comes as the administration faces pressure to support a global pledge to phase out fossil fuels.
Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, an environmental group, called the E.P.A. policy “the most impactful climate rule that the United States has ever adopted in terms of addressing temperatures we would otherwise see.”
But Republicans in Congress said the regulation would hurt the gas industry and also raise energy prices for Americans at home.But Republicans in Congress said the regulation would hurt the gas industry and also raise energy prices for Americans at home.
“Federal overreach to advance a misguided climate agenda has become a staple of the Biden administration,” Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, said in a statement. She called the final rule “just one more example of these harmful regulations.”“Federal overreach to advance a misguided climate agenda has become a staple of the Biden administration,” Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, said in a statement. She called the final rule “just one more example of these harmful regulations.”
An odorless, colorless, flammable gas, methane is produced by landfills, agriculture, livestock and oil and gas drilling. The fossil fuel industry is the biggest industrial source of methane emissions in the United States. Oil and gas companies often intentionally burn methane or vent it into the atmosphere during gas production. The fossil fuel industry has for years been divided over the methane regulations. Some large international companies, including BP, expressed support for the plan, while the Independent Petroleum Producers of America, which represents small and independent oil companies, said the rule could shut down of 300,000 of the nation’s 750,000 low-production wells, which it called “essential to our country’s energy production.”
The fossil fuel industry has for years been divided over the methane regulations, but many companies expressed support on Friday. Climate activists said they hoped the new United States rule would pave the way for more global progress on curbing methane. For now, though, emissions are going in the wrong direction. Last year methane emissions rose, according to a report by the World Meteorological Organization.
The Obama administration created rules that aimed to prevent methane leaks from oil and gas wells built since 2015, but they were rescinded by the Trump administration. President Biden pledged to restore and strengthen them after he was elected. Older oil and gas rigs tend to leak more methane than new systems. The conference saw other commitments to reduce fossil fuel emissions on Saturday. Fifty oil and gas companies — including ExxonMobil; Saudi Aramco; Adnoc, the state-owned oil company of the United Arab Emirates; Conoco Phillips and BP — pledged to reduce their methane emissions between 80 to 90 percent by the end of this decade.
As concentrations of methane in the atmosphere have increased, environmentalists have grown increasingly concerned about its role in climate change. The coalition, called the “Global Decarbonization Accelerator,” was the flagship announcement from the Emirates at COP28. It was denounced by 300 environmental groups, which said it did not go far enough to wind down fossil fuels.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the regulation would reduce about 58 million tons of methane emissions from 2024 to 2038, the equivalent of about 1.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, about what the entire power sect of the country spewed in one year. In 2030 alone, the agency estimated, the expected reductions from the rule are equivalent to 130 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, more than the annual emissions from 28 million gasoline-powered cars. The companies represent more than 40 percent of global oil production. The pledge is voluntary, but Bloomberg Philanthropies also announced a new, $40 million program to bolster transparency in the ways companies measure and report leaks.
The E.P.A. said it included provisions to “limit wasteful, polluting flaring of natural gas” but the rule will be phased in over time. The agency said it wanted to give the industry enough time to obtain pollution control equipment like aerial screening, sensor networks or satellites needed to comply. A separate coalition of countries, development banks and nonprofit organizations announced a new initiative to help developing nations phase out coal. The partnership, known as the Coal Transition Accelerator, will aim to provide affordable financing for poor countries seeking to build renewable power and repurpose coal infrastructure to support clean energy projects.
The rule also requires comprehensive monitoring for leaks of methane from well sites and compressor stations, though the agency maintained it gives companies “flexibility” to use low-cost monitoring technologies. And it also establishes standards that require reductions in emissions from high-emitting equipment like controllers, pumps, and storage tanks. “The international community has a responsibility to support the emerging economies in their strategy to phase out coal,” Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, said in a meeting about the effort with the leaders of Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia. “We need to change the rules of the game if we want to accelerate.”
Finally, the rule includes a program to use independent third parties that would use remote sensing to detect large methane releases or leaks known as “super emitters,” which recent studies have indicated account for almost half of methane emissions from the oil and gas sector.
Climate advocates said they hoped the new United States rule would pave the way for more global progress on curbing methane. For now, though, emissions are going in the wrong direction. Last year methane emissions rose, according to a report by the World Meteorological Organization.
Also on Saturday in Dubai, a new coalition of countries, development banks and nonprofit organizations launched a new initiative to help developing nations phase out coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel. The partnership, known as the Coal Transition Accelerator, will aim to provide affordable financing for poor countries looking to build renewable power and repurpose coal infrastructure to support clean energy projects.
“The international community has a responsibility to support the emerging economies in their strategy to phase out coal,” Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, said in a meeting about the effort with the leaders of Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia. “We need to change the rules of the game if we want to accelerate.”
David Gelles contributed reporting.David Gelles contributed reporting.