Category: CN_BUSINESSES_TA ECONOMICS_CN Greenhouse_Gases_CN NEWS_NEWS

A new report suggests the money that Big Tech companies keep in the banking system can do more climate damage than the products they sell.

Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached the highest levels on record for any calendar month during April, averaging 420 parts per million (ppm) for the first time since observations began in 1958, according to new data.

Low-producing oil and gas wells that account for just 6% of total U.S. production account for half of the methane emitted from all U.S. well sites. The study, published in Nature Communications, is the first to take a comprehensive look at the over 560,000 active “marginal” oil and gas wells across the United States that account for 80% of all well sites. It comes as the Environmental Protection Agency prepares to unveil new provisions for its methane regulation for the oil and gas sector that it introduced last November.

Low-producing oil and gas wells are to blame for roughly half of the methane emitted from all U.S. well sites, despite making up 6 percent of the country’s total production, according to new research published this week. The study, published in Nature Communications, is the first comprehensive look at low-production well site emissions nationwide, researchers said. The paper found that low-producing or “marginal” wells emit methane at a rate 6 to 12 times higher than the national average — releasing some 4 million metric tons of the potent greenhouse gas a year.

Mitigation of methane (CH4) emissions, a powerful greenhouse gas with >80× the 20-year warming potential of carbon dioxide is widely recognized as strategically integral to the attainment of the climate-neutrality goals of Paris Agreement. In the United States, official estimates from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) indicate nearly one-third (30%) of anthropogenic CH4 emissions arise from oil and natural gas (O&G) operations.

FERC commissioners’ effort to strike a compromise on a new policy framework for pipeline certifications may put pressure on the Democratic majority to make concessions about whether a project’s greenhouse gas emissions can derail its approval, according to energy experts.

According to the IPCC, methane emissions linked to energy supply, particularly “fugitive” emissions that escape from the production and transport of fossil fuels, accounted for as much as 8 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas pollution in 2019.

A potent planet-warming gas set a record for the second year in a row, scientists reported Thursday, just as the UN’s panel on climate change warned the world is running out of time to rein in fossil fuel emissions.

Levels of methane in the atmosphere increased last year by the largest amount since measurements began four decades ago, government scientists said on Thursday, adding to concerns about the planet-warming gas, which spews from oil and natural gas operations.

A global initiative to slash methane emissions launched this week, targeting a climate scourge that has accounted for roughly 30 percent of global warming since the preindustrial era. The Global Methane Hub, equipped with $340 million from big donors and philanthropic organizations, aims to provide funding and technical guidance for countries to track, regulate, and ultimately drive down emissions of the potent greenhouse gas.