Methane fast facts: Methane is responsible for 20% of global warming since the Industrial Revolution; In 2018, the food system contributed 33% of all human-caused GHG emissions; In 2015, livestock contributed to 10% of US methane emissions; Methane is about 30 times more potent than CO2 over the span of a century; Europe and the Arctic are the only two regions whose methane emissions decreased from 2000 to 2018; Atmospheric methane concentrations have more than doubled in the last 200 years.Credits: NASA/Jesse Kirsch
By Matthew Choi, Politico Morning Energy
THE METHANE FACTOR: Though carbon emissions get much of the spotlight when talking about global emissions, Democrats are looking for ways to combat the second most responsible greenhouse gas for climate change: methane. The gas traps heat 86 times more effectively over 20 years than carbon dioxide, and emissions have boomed in the past several years, with the shale revolution playing no small part. The UN’s latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report shows that methane concentration in the atmosphere is at its highest now in 800,000 years.
Combating methane emissions is becoming a major target for some Democrats in Congress and the administration. And fossil fuel majors would seem like a likely supporter for stopping emissions, with the methane lost to the atmosphere a potential commodity they could sell.
But efforts could be at a nexus of conflict with the agriculture sector and small drillers who find additional regulations potentially onerous and harmful to their bottom lines. Agriculture accounts for about 40 percent of methane emissions, and any regulations that would impact everyday Americans’ access to beef is a political third rail.
“Our hard-working livestock producers should not have to worry about being subject to onerous regulations and increased production costs,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said this month on the Senate floor about Democrats’ proposal for a fee on methane emissions. “This ‘cow tax’ will just result in higher food costs for Americans at the grocery store at a time when inflation already has caused prices to skyrocket.”
Democrats are eyeing a methane polluter fee to include in their $3.5 trillion budget resolution, and several lawmakers introduced their own legislation this month for refiners and producers to pay into a fund based on a share of their global carbon and methane emissions. Meanwhile, in the administration, EPA is working on new rules for next month that build on methane regulations revived by the Congressional Review Act earlier this year, Pro’s Zack Colman reports. And White House climate czar Gina McCarthy’s office is working on a social cost of methane.
Related methane news:
Methane: A crucial opportunity in the climate fight (EDF)
Methane and climate change (IEA)
NASA at Your Table: Where Food Meets Methane (NASA)
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