Incite Post | Don't Forget About Methane

Published

Jul 9, 2023

PUBLISHER

Caroline

Incite Community,

Methane is on our mind – we’re often asked about topic areas that we’re diving into – and amidst historic rates of methane emissions, this is one of them.

Why has such a potent gas remained on the periphery of climate agendas? While CO2 is the most prevalent greenhouse gas, methane has more than 80 times the warming potential of CO2 during the first 20 years it reaches the atmosphere and has contributed to 30% of the planet’s warming to date. With 60% of methane emission sources from human-led activity alone (landfills leak it, cows burp it, and natural gas burns it), it’s time to pay more attention to methane’s impact.

Addressing methane emissions is crucial to meeting our climate goals, and we have a ton of work to do to catch up with CO2. If deployable solutions exist in certain industry sectors, what’s staling implementation? How do we make real progress on methane mitigation as 2030 climate targets loom on the horizon?

We’ve seen a rapid rise in innovative solutions to identify, monitor and mitigate methane emissions across multiple industries, from livestock feed supplements to anaerobic digesters in waste systems to satellite sensors to accurately detect methane leaks in oil and gas production. And it’s not like methane has gone unnoticed at a national level. In a historic Global Methane Pledge, over 150 countries pledged to slash methane emissions by at least 30% from 2020 levels by 2030 and President Biden released a U.S. Methane Emission Plan to address each methane source. There’s still room to grow, though – climate pledges aren’t enough to drive widespread adoption. The private and public sector can play a critical role in holding industry accountable while simultaneously incentivizing the research development and deployment of new technology.

Take the energy sector-strict methane regulations to manage leaks and limit flaring fall short in the absence of state field enforcement. It would take less than 3% of big oil’s profits to deploy readily available solutions, yet as we’re seeing with oil and gas operators in New Mexico, there’s no incentive for operators to do anything about it.

We’re thrilled to see the Biden Admin proposed strict regulations to manage methane leaks and limit flaring and beginning in 2024, oil and gas entities will be charged a $900/metric ton methane emission charge as part of the IRA, a first-of-its-kind emission fee. However, enforcement falls short as these regulations rely heavily not only on industry to self-regulate, but also on state and local governments. As regulators develop methane mitigation policies across critical industry sectors (agriculture, oil and gas, waste), how can philanthropists, policymakers and company leaders work together to enable adoption?

To help us lay out that vision, in this edition of the Incite Post, we sat down with Erika Reinhardt, co-founder & executive director of Spark Climate and an expert on enteric and atmospheric methane solutions.

And as always – if you know of anyone doing exciting work in this critical space, send them our way at: hi@incite.org.

Spark Climate Solutions Spotlight

erika Mask group

Erika Reinhardt is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Spark Climate Solutions, a research based nonprofit focused on field-building in emerging climate areas. Spark focuses on under-addressed areas of science and technology that have the potential for large-scale mitigation of climate harm, addressing near-term warming, and contributing to climate repair.

What intervention points are you most excited about in methane removal?
Atmospheric methane removal approaches are being researched to determine how methane, once in the atmosphere, can be removed faster than with natural systems alone to help lower peak temperatures, and counteract some of the impact of large-scale natural systems methane releases. This is a very early research field that's just starting to grow to get to answers on which approaches might work, and what other ideas could be put on the table. Accelerating research—be that through direct funding, government funding advocacy, or other methods— is one of the biggest intervention points right now in order to advance our understanding of what these methods might be, and how safe, effective and scalable they could be.
Where do you see the biggest barriers to scaling up R&D and technical implementation on methane mitigation and removal strategies? What role do philanthropists, industry experts and policymakers play?
It really depends on the sector of emissions within methane. We have many ready solutions that need policy support to provide carrots to adopt available solutions (or sticks for not adopting them); philanthropists can play a big role here in supporting advocacy that helps that to happen. We need folks in industry to contribute to actually getting solutions deployed — be that through operations, technical development, business model or financing innovation, or anything else. . For other portions of emissions, we don't yet have available solutions, and more R+D is acutely needed to fill this gap—philanthropists can help by directly funding research, and supporting policy efforts that advocate for increased federal or state R+D funding. Folks in industry can contribute to innovation as well, developing new solutions.
Enteric methane mitigation solutions are largely underdeveloped relative to other methane sectors. Where do you see the biggest policy gaps in livestock methane emission reduction and how is Spark Climate working to change the curb of policy efforts at the state and federal level?
It's a very new field, so there are many — in the US, for example, gaps range from creating regulatory pathways to evaluate methane emissions reduction solutions as they become available, to funding the necessary research and development—and related infrastructure—to support the advancement of scientific understanding and further solution development. Based on where we saw other existing efforts focusing, and where there were gaps, we've gotten most involved to-date on R+D and infrastructure funding needs, partnering closely with other organizations. Agricultural R&D spending on climate mitigation remains shockingly low in numerous fields, including multiple methane-heavy ones, and helping to address this problem across fields will also be crucial.
What piece of fiction-in any medium-has brought you joy recently?
Wild stories told by my young kids about all sorts of cute and utterly nonsensical things.