Volts podcast: all about methane, with Sarah Smith of the Clean Air Task Force

In this episode, I talk with Sarah Smith of the Clean Air Task
Force about methane, the greenhouse gas that falls out of the
atmosphere more quickly than carbon dioxide but trap a lot more
heat while it’s there. We discuss sources of methane pollution,
opportunities for reduction, and recent policy developments.


Full transcript of Volts podcast featuring Sarah Smith, September
29, 2021


(PDF version)


David Roberts:


Methane is having a moment.


Methane — chemical name CH4 — is a fuel. It is the primary
ingredient in natural gas, which generates about 40 percent of US
electricity and heats about half of US homes. It is also an air
pollutant, a precursor to ground-level ozone, which is toxic to
humans. And it is also a greenhouse gas, much shorter lived in
the atmosphere than CO2, but much more potent while it is there.


Methane in the atmosphere comes from leaks along oil and gas
infrastructure, from agriculture (primarily cow burps and
manure), and from landfills. Rising concern over methane
pollution has culminated in the Global Methane Pledge, announced
by President Joe Biden’s White House last week, which would have
participating countries (which include the EU, the UK, and
Mexico) reduce methane emissions at least 30 percent by 2030.


This followed the United Nations Environment Program’s Global
Methane Assessment in May, which found that substantially and
rapidly reducing methane is the only way to meet the
international goal of keeping warming under 1.5°C.


Clearly, for those of us who haven’t been paying as close
attention as we should, it’s time to tune into the methane
debate.


The Clean Air Task Force has been tracking methane pollution and
advocating for reductions for years. So I was eager to talk to
Sarah Smith, the head of CATF’s Super Pollutants program, about
the basics of methane: where it comes from, how it can be
reduced, and the battles over it in US methane policy. (See also:
Smith’s op-ed in Canary.)


Without further ado, Sarah Smith, welcome to Volts. Thanks for
coming.


Sarah Smith:   


Thank you so much for having me, David.


David Roberts:   


For those of us who have not been tracking the details of methane
as closely as they might: what exactly is methane? 


Sarah Smith:   


Methane is an invisible, odorless gas that is commonly known as
the main constituent of natural gas. It has flown under the radar
for far too long. It's currently contributing to about half the
warming that we're experiencing today.


David Roberts: 


Methane is a greenhouse gas that traps more heat in the
atmosphere than CO2, but for a shorter period of time. What is
the climate change potential of methane, and how does it differ
from CO2?


Sarah Smith:  


Every pound of methane heats the climate more than 80 times as
much as a pound of CO2. But methane only lasts for about a decade
in the atmosphere, which is a big opportunity, because quickly
reducing the amount of methane in the atmosphere would very
quickly slow warming, whereas carbon dioxide is slowly building
up over time and takes much longer to reduce.


David Roberts: 


I’ve seen it compared to stock vs. flow. With CO2, if you stock
it up in the atmosphere it stays, so you have to worry about the
total amount. Methane is a flow problem; it's constantly coming
out of the atmosphere. Is it fair to say that if we reduced the
addition of methane into the atmosphere to the rate at which it
was coming out of the atmosphere, we would basically stabilize
its temperature effect? In other words, theoretically, there is
some level of methane emissions at which you're not making things
warmer.


Sarah Smith:


Exactly, and that's the goal: to get back to those pre-industrial
concentrations of methane by ensuring that less methane is being
added than removed.


David Roberts: 


It is startling that methane has caused half of historical
climate warming thus far. How was that discovered, and how did we
not know it for so long?


Sarah Smith:


I ask myself that question all the time. The latest report from
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finally shone a
bright light on methane; you saw the CO2 bar next to the methane
bar and clearly, methane was causing a substantial amount of the
warming, about half as much as CO2. Subsequently, the attention
is growing, as it should, and as it has been for years, but
finally, we're really reaching a crescendo here.


David Roberts:


What are the implications for policy? What does this allow us to
do if we grab hold of the methane lever?


Sarah Smith:   


A powerful lever it is. We don't have a lot of time left —
perhaps 10 to 15 years, maybe less — to bend the warming curve in
order to stave off irreversible changes to our climate, including
self-reinforcing feedbacks where the world warms itself, like the
loss of the remaining reflective sea ice, which would add the
equivalent of a trillion tons of CO2 to what's already been
added.


There's also the Amazon tipping point, where the Amazon could be
canceled out as a carbon sink. And many others. So we're in this
race now to slow warming, and the biggest lever we can pull, by
far, is cutting methane. We have the technology to quickly cut
methane by at least 45 percent by 2030, and that would deliver an
astonishing 0.3 degrees Celsius of reduced warming, along with a
host of other benefits.


David Roberts: 


When you say reduced warming, you mean relative to baseline,
right? 


Sarah Smith: 


Exactly. Bending the curve down, reducing the rate of warming. We
could reduce this 0.3 degrees C by the early 2040s through
reducing methane.


David Roberts:  


This is the key thing about methane. You could cut CO2 almost to
zero tomorrow and the warming set in motion by the CO2 that's in
the atmosphere would continue. Whereas cutting methane gives us
this lever where we can promise visible results within a
reasonable lifetime.


Sarah Smith:  


Decarbonization is critical for slowing long-term warming, but it
doesn't provide any reduction in warming for 20 to 30 years, and
we simply can't wait. We have to address methane.


David Roberts:  


Lately, there's been global attention to reducing aerosols and
their negative environmental effects. But one of the things
aerosols did, perversely, was thicken the atmosphere and shelter
us from some warming. There's worry that reducing aerosols
globally, while it will have immediate positive environmental
effects on ozone, etc., will actually boost short-term warming.
So this brings us back to the need to have a short-term tool to
fight that effect.


Sarah Smith:   


That's an important insight and one that this latest report from
the IPCC finally highlighted in clear terms.


David Roberts:   


Notoriously, there's been a big spike in methane emissions in the
last few decades, and it's something of a mystery, as I
understand it. Do we know where that methane is coming
from? 


Sarah Smith:  


We're certain about the spike. But there is a lot of uncertainty
around what's driving the spike.


David Roberts:    


Do we have a list of culprits? 


Sarah Smith:  


We think fossil is a significant part of the search, but probably
not the only contributing factor.


David Roberts: 


In terms of knowing how much methane is in the atmosphere, we've
historically relied on self-reporting by companies and countries
that maybe can't be fully trusted to do transparent
self-reporting. Now, we have satellites that can allegedly detect
methane. What are the satellites revealing, and what will they
reveal when there are more of them?


Sarah Smith: 


The satellite technology is improving, and it's exciting that
several are planned for launch in the next few years. That will
give us a much more detailed view from the sky of the emissions
all around the world; in the case of the Carbon Mapper satellite
constellation, near real-time data for the whole planet. That
will revolutionize the policymaking landscape and industry, which
will suddenly be on the hook to take this on.


David Roberts:  


Tell me a little bit more about the satellite network.


Sarah Smith:  


There's one called Carbon Mapper that will be a constellation, as
I understand it, of more than 20 satellites, circling the globe,
and providing data every few days. 


David Roberts: 


Is there a third-grade explanation of the science behind how,
from space, you can detect a colorless odorless gas being emitted
on the ground? 


Sarah Smith: 


Sadly, I'm not a satellite expert. But scientists in NASA's Jet
Propulsion Lab have been involved in developing this technology,
so I am confident in its ability to work.


David Roberts: 


It's like the entire world having a curtain pulled away: every
single source of methane will be exposed. Do you have any guesses
about what that's going to show? Are there going to be big
surprises? What might we find out that we don't know?


Sarah Smith:  


Already, some of the satellites in the sky today — which aren’t
as good as what's coming, but give us some early clues — have
shown massive plumes of methane coming from oil and gas
infrastructure, including pipelines, and have already resulted in
some cleanup efforts. So I'm excited about the surprises, and
hopeful the big sources will be caught more quickly.


What satellites won't be able to do is pinpoint every tiny leak,
and we need to try to address those too. But satellites will be
able to show us where the bigger emissions are coming from.


David Roberts:  


We keep hearing about giant methane deposits in the Siberian
permafrost, in bogs and swamps. There's this constant worry about
a tipping point that unleashes giant methane deposits from
permafrost. What's the state of science on that? How worried
should we be?


Sarah Smith:  


Right now, more than half of methane is coming from human-caused
sources. We should address that as quickly as we possibly can, in
part to help prevent a rise in methane from these “natural”
sources, the leading one being wetlands. Right now, permafrost is
not a huge source compared to others globally, but as temperature
rises, it could bit by bit become a bigger source. But I don't
think people should lose sleep over a one-day sudden surge.


David Roberts: 


You think the chances of a big dramatic release are relatively
low?


Sarah Smith: 


Yes, that's what the science seems to be saying.


David Roberts:


I guess we can take some relief in that.


Sarah Smith: 


We still have a lot of work to do, but that's one bright spot.


David Roberts:


What are the biggest human-caused sources of methane emission,
both globally and in the US?


Sarah Smith: 


Overall, they're fairly similar, with about a third of the
emissions coming from the fossil sector, including oil and gas
and coal mines; about a third, maybe a little bit more, coming
from agriculture, with the main sources being livestock, manure,
and rice cultivation; and then the final amount coming from
waste, including landfills.


David Roberts:


I think we have a pretty good understanding of how methane builds
up in coal mines and releases. But where in the oil and gas
process are these leaks happening?


Sarah Smith:


The sad thing is that they're happening throughout the whole
supply chain, from the well pad, where the gas or oil is being
pumped out of the ground, where there are leaks; unloading of
liquids along with gas from wells; pneumatic devices,
compressors, storage tanks, dehydrators. All through the supply
chain, many of these devices also exist: the pneumatics, the
compressors, the tanks. Then, of course, you have the pipelines.
All the way from the production through processing, transmission
and storage, and even distribution portion of the industry.


David Roberts: 


So there's not one big spot to focus on; that's a little
disheartening. Are there no junctures or concentrations we could
target first, if we're trying to prioritize?


Sarah Smith:


You're pointing out a big reason why this emission problem still
exists. It is dispersed. We are talking about millions of sources
that can and must be cleaned up.


David Roberts: 


There has been a long ongoing argument in the climate world over
the perennial question of how clean natural gas electricity is
compared to coal electricity. Some say that there's so much
leakage of methane in the supply chain before you get natural gas
electricity that it wipes out any advantage natural gas has over
coal; other estimates say no, the leakage rate is low enough that
it still has an advantage. How confident are we that we know the
leakage rate in this process?


Sarah Smith: 


The leakage of potent methane substantially erodes the climate
benefit of gas over coal, and depending on where that gas is
produced, how far it's transported, and how it’s transported, the
upstream emissions can vary widely. All of that needs to be
factored in.


But I think comparison to coal is letting us off too easy. It's
not the ambitious benchmark that we need, which is near-zero
methane emissions. Flaring needs to end, venting needs to end,
these super-emitter plumes and leaks have to be found and fixed,
and that antiquated equipment that vents methane to the
atmosphere as part of its normal operation should be phased out.


David Roberts: 


Can you explain flaring and venting? When I tell people about
flaring, they have trouble believing that I'm telling the
truth. 


Sarah Smith:  


I experience that, too. It is remarkable that billions of dollars
worth of gas gets lit on fire every year as a disposal mechanism.
It turns out that burning it is better than just releasing it
straight into the air, which is venting.


David Roberts: 


Natural gas is valuable, used in a lot of different ways, and we
go out to mine it and search for it, but oil wells are throwing
tons of it away. What's going on there? Why throw away a valuable
resource?


Sarah Smith:   


The oil producers have not yet been forced to capture and utilize
or sell the gas.


David Roberts: 


Couldn’t they make money? Why would they have to be forced if
they could make money?


Sarah Smith:  


Certainly money could be made. The question is, could more money
be made in other ways? That short-term profit is what they’re
after.


David Roberts:


What would be involved in not venting or flaring, but capturing
and transporting the gas? Is it additional infrastructure?


Sarah Smith: 


A lot of times it comes down to planning in advance and making
sure that before the well is drilled, there's capacity to use or
get rid of the gas. There are a wide range of solutions, from
using the excess gas to make power on site, or making sure
there’s a pipeline and a compressor there to get it to market.
But companies aren't doing that without being required to.


David Roberts:   


Liquid natural gas is another big source of controversy. There
are people advocating for liquid natural gas export terminals in
the US; China is supposedly going to start importing a lot more
liquid natural gas. Is liquid natural gas, in terms of the
methane leakage in the process of making it, worse than normal
natural gas?


Sarah Smith: 


There is energy that needs to be used to compress the gas into
LNG and transport it. We're also concerned about emissions during
that transportation process: boil-off of gas, leaks, even
super-emitter events. We have an optical gas imaging camera that
can be used to see the emissions that are normally invisible, and
we've taken it to some LNG sites in Europe and seen the
pollution. We know it exists, and we're concerned about it. It's
an area where little study has been done so far, but all of these
emissions do need to be factored in.


David Roberts:


The US fracking industry is likely to collapse soon, and there
are thousands upon thousands of wells all over the place, many of
which get abandoned because our laws about holding fossil fuel
companies responsible for them are rather weak. Are they a source
of methane? How big of a problem are abandoned wells? 


Sarah Smith:  


They are another source of methane, and we're especially worried
about the ones where there is no longer a clear owner.
Unfortunately, the government needs to step up with the resources
and cap these pollution sources. Long term, we have to make sure
that oil and gas companies are responsible for their wells.


David Roberts: 


What does that policy look like when they're responsible for
their wells? Is it just a matter of bonding some extra money
upfront?


Sarah Smith: 


I do think that's key, yes; making sure that enough money is
actually bonded upfront that the well can be capped and properly
maintained.


David Roberts: 


When we say capping a well, are we literally just talking about
going and putting a cap on something? Is it just a concrete plug
in a tube, or is there something more complicated involved?


Sarah Smith:  


Generally, this is plumbing, not rocket science, but it can be
costly to properly plug these wells and then ensure that they're
checked for leaks over time.


David Roberts: 


What's involved in stopping methane leaks in LNG production?


Sarah Smith: 


Step one, find the leaks: if it's with a camera, or a flyover,
or, increasingly, satellite technology. Continuous monitoring
sensors are also becoming more popular and lower cost. So
detecting the emissions and then fixing the problem, which can be
as simple as closing a hatch that's been left open, reigniting a
flare that's been snuffed out, or fixing a hole in a pipeline or
a tank.


David Roberts:  


It doesn't sound like it's a difficult technical problem or an
intellectual challenge.


Sarah Smith:  


We have the technology today. In fact, the International Energy
Agency says that half of the emissions could be cut from oil and
gas at no cost, and 75 percent could be done at low cost with
existing technologies. So there's a lot of potential here.


David Roberts: 


How can it be costless?


Sarah Smith:


In enough of the places, the pollutant is the product too. That’s
how the minimal costs associated with finding and fixing these
leaks and updating the equipment can be recouped.


David Roberts: 


The second big source of methane that you listed is agriculture.
This is cow burps and cow poop? 


Sarah Smith: 


Those are two of the top ones, indeed.


David Roberts:  


What can be done about those?


Sarah Smith:  


On the cow burps, also known as enteric fermentation, there is no
silver bullet, but there are solutions that should be pursued,
including feed changes and selective breeding. Whenever we
improve productivity and animal health and fertility, that's
going to reduce methane emissions associated with the products
from that animal. So those are good solutions. 


David Roberts: 


Breeding cows that burp less?


Sarah Smith: 


Selective breeding to improve productivity. This is an area that
New Zealand has pioneered, and the reductions in emissions aren't
staggering — they see a 10 percent reduction, often — but if we
could extend that over more of the world, that would start to
make a real impact.


David Roberts: 


What can be done with the poop? As I understand it, the poop
right now goes into giant lagoons and sits there off-gassing. Is
that right?


Sarah Smith:


A lot of that does occur, yes. Some farms have started to adopt
these biogas digesters, which require maintenance but can be an
important solution. And again, that gas can be utilized, so
that's one solution.


David Roberts: 


Is that the main poop solution, capturing the gas and using it?
Or are there other methods?


Sarah Smith: 


There are some other actions that can be taken, like decreasing
the amount of time it’s stored before it's used, covering it
better. There are some emerging technologies, like powdered
additives that can be added to the slurry to reduce the
emissions. But more study is needed to understand the
effectiveness of some of these newer approaches, and more study
should be undertaken, because the ag sector as a whole is a huge
source of methane that we absolutely need to rein in.


David Roberts: 


A growing source, right, because more and more people are eating
more and more meat?


Sarah Smith: 


That's right — projected to continue in that direction as well.


David Roberts:


It seems to me that one of the obvious solutions in agriculture
is just to eat less meat and raise fewer animals. That would be
the most straightforward way to reduce this, wouldn't it?


Sarah Smith:


That would certainly help. 


David Roberts:


It's funny that we have so much more faith in all the
technological solutions than we do in the idea of persuading
people to eat less meat.


Sarah Smith:


That's a challenging case to make, yes, even if it's in their own
self-interest and would improve health.


David Roberts:


Is it safe to say that the reductions in agriculture are a bit
more difficult, less thorough, and less fully understood than in
oil and gas?


Sarah Smith:


Yes, that's true. There are steps that we could and should take
today, but we won't get to zero overnight.


David Roberts:


The third big one, then, is waste and landfills. As I understand
it, the reason they're off-gassing methane is that they contain a
lot of organic material. Do we have any large-scale solutions for
landfills?


Sarah Smith: 


No, unfortunately, not really. We could take a substantial bite
out of the emissions through existing technologies, like header
capping, capturing the gas from landfills and using it, or, if
there's no way to use it, at least burning it off so that it
doesn't vent directly to the atmosphere. As you said, the methane
is a result of organic material decomposing in the landfill, so
reducing the amount of organic waste that's winding up in
landfills is also a important piece of the solution.


David Roberts: 


Which would be primarily food waste, right?


Sarah Smith: 


Right. Food waste is important to consider and important to try
to reduce overall.


David Roberts:


Landfills are huge. What does it look like to capture the gas
coming off of a landfill? 


Sarah Smith:


In order to capture the gas, the landfill has to be covered, and
the gas essentially rises and gets captured at the centralized
points. 


David Roberts: 


So that costs more. For your average landfill, can you make
enough off the gas to pay for the process of capturing it? What
are the economics there?


Sarah Smith:


The upfront cost can be a barrier. That's where we need to scale
up financing and make sure that municipalities and government
jurisdictions that are charged with solid waste handling have the
resources to invest in better facilities and facilities that
pollute less.


David Roberts:   


Food waste seems like a difficult problem. Are there
technological solutions to food waste, or is this mostly a
behavior issue that we need to educate people about? 


Sarah Smith: 


One of the groups that works on this is called ReFED; I spoke
with their executive director a couple of years ago, and he was
telling me that there are policy changes that can help, like
shifting dates on packaging to ensure that there's maximal time
to use the food while safe, improvements in packaging,
technology, and so forth. That can all help, but I'm not an
expert in food waste.


David Roberts: 


Tell us about the global methane pledge that President Biden just
announced. Is it ambitious enough? Do we think that countries
signing the pledge will actually do what they're saying they will
do?


Sarah Smith: 


EU president Ursula von der Leyen and President Biden together
announced this pledge recently. They called on countries around
the world to join them in a collective effort to reduce global
methane from all sectors by at least 30 percent below 2020 levels
by 2030, and, importantly, also to take comprehensive domestic
action to achieve this target. So this is a great step in the
right direction.


David Roberts: 


So you think 30 percent by 2030 is a good target?


Sarah Smith:


I do, especially when compared to the 2020 baseline. This would
be a big step toward keeping a 1.5 degree C of warming future in
reach.


David Roberts:


Is this styled like the Paris Agreement, where countries are
proclaiming they'll do this and we're trusting them based on
their goodwill? 


Sarah Smith: 


This is a voluntary pledge, yes. I think of it as the launchpad
for deep work in every one of these countries, to ensure that
policies are put into place and actions are taken on the ground
to get these tons of methane out of the air and try to stave off
irreversible changes to the climate.


David Roberts:


Is it fair to say that there's no way to stop short of 1.5
degrees without getting ahold of methane?


Sarah Smith: 


Yes. We cannot keep 1.5 degrees in reach without wringing all of
the methane that we can out of the system.


David Roberts: 


Catch us up on US methane policy. What policies do we have in
place, especially with oil and gas? What are the big fights going
on right now?


Sarah Smith:  


Fortunately, the US is poised to lead by example on this issue,
through new rules from the US Environmental Protection Agency and
through action by Congress this year that could put us on strong
footing going into the COP and bring more countries onto this
pledge.


David Roberts: 


This fight has been going on for a long time. Obama’s EPA put
some standards in place, didn’t it?


Sarah Smith:  


Yes. President Obama's EPA developed standards for new and
modified oil and gas sources, but left on the table emissions
from the vast network of existing polluting oil and gas equipment
all across the country. That is something that EPA Administrator
Regan under the Biden administration has committed to addressing
in forthcoming standards that should be out publicly in the next
month.


David Roberts: 


So there are no federal standards on existing wells and mines?


Sarah Smith:


That's right. They are allowed to release unlimited methane right
now.


David Roberts: 


Are Obama's standards on new and modified sources still in place,
or did Trump mess with those?


Sarah Smith: 


He certainly tried. They were off the books briefly, but Congress
took action through the Congressional Review Act and undid the
Trump rollback so that the Obama rules are largely back in place.
But they need to be updated, because we've learned a heck of a
lot about methane reduction since 2015 and 2016, when those rules
were written. We now know emissions could be cut in the US by 65
percent at least, using currently available, low-cost
technologies.


We know more about how to solve the problem from states that have
stepped up and taken leadership on this issue, including
Colorado, which has gone through several rounds of rulemakings on
this, and even the state of New Mexico, which recently took on
flaring. Both Colorado and New Mexico now have finalized
phase-outs for flaring of associated gas. Producers are going to
have to stop routine flaring and capture the gas, except in
emergency situations.


David Roberts:


Has Colorado shown success? Are methane emissions in Colorado
declining? 


Sarah Smith: 


The latest data I've seen does show a declining leak rate in
Colorado, and I expect that trend to continue with the state
continuing to take leadership on this issue.


David Roberts: 


I’ve read that the Democrats’ reconciliation bill is meant to
include a methane fee. What can you tell me about that?


Sarah Smith: 


This is a modest fee proposal that would reinforce the specific
regulatory requirements that EPA is working on. It would raise
revenue, much of which would go to EPA and could help the agency
implement the provisions of the rules, improve reporting and
monitoring, and even fund environmental restoration projects,
including in communities that have been most impacted by air
pollution from industry and climate change.


David Roberts: 


Is it intended mostly as a revenue raiser? 


Sarah Smith: 


That’s the main thrust, but it's important to note that it would
also help reduce emissions quickly and provide an incentive for
companies to go above and beyond the regulations that get
promulgated under the Clean Air Act.


David Roberts: 


What is the oil and gas industry's current posture toward these
upcoming rules? Are they still dug in in opposition? 


Sarah Smith: 


I would be hesitant to put the whole industry into one bucket on
this. The seas are shifting. Some companies, over the course of
the past couple of years, have started to support methane
regulation. Even API, the industry trade association, has changed
their messaging on this to be much more supportive. I think they
see the writing on the wall.


David Roberts:  


I know they're protesting the fee. They say it's duplicative or
it's on top of the rules, it's confusing. Do you put any credence
in those kind of objections?


Sarah Smith:  


No, I really don’t. This is an industry that could so easily
minimize its pollution, has had a chance to do that, and hasn't
acted quickly enough. So it's time for the hammer to come down.


David Roberts:


It seems like it would be a political and public relations boon
for an oil and gas company to say, “we're going to be a different
kind of oil and gas company, we're going to be responsible and
clean up our methane emissions.” They could do it at low cost and
reap such a PR bonanza. Why have none of them done this, not even
a single outlier? Do you have any theories about this?


Sarah Smith: 


I wish I could sit each one of the CEOs down with you, David,
because that's exactly right. I think it's a case of
short-sightedness, and, in some cases, prioritizing short-term
gains over long-term gains.


David Roberts: 


Globally speaking, where are the other big methane sources? What
other countries are particularly bad on this? Are there other
countries taking action like the US? 


Sarah Smith:


Sadly, there are methane emissions coming from every continent,
every country. Because they're so dispersed, we need global
action on this global problem. Many of the big economies are the
bigger sources right now, but not exclusively. 


In terms of where we're seeing action, it’s exciting to see the
US stepping up, and I'll be curious and hopeful to see strong
rules coming out this year and finalized next year. The European
Commission has a methane strategy that cuts across a range of
sectors; they're starting out with some legislation later this
year on the oil and gas sector that will, we hope, take action on
venting and flaring, leaks, monitoring, reporting, and the topics
that we've discussed today. This would be across the EU.


Hopefully the EU will also establish import standards for all of
the gas it's purchasing. It's currently the number one importer
of gas in the world, so that will put pressure on Russia and
Algeria and Qatar and some of these other countries that are
supplying fuel into the EU to implement these common-sense best
practices.


David Roberts:


I think of Russia as a huge source of natural gas. Is Russia
taking action?


Sarah Smith: 


President Putin spoke about the need to reduce methane and called
for global action on the topic during the leaders summit that
President Biden organized on climate earlier this year, so it'll
be interesting to see how that unfolds. Ultimately, we need
certification and monitoring to ensure that the practices are
actually being implemented on the ground, and the emissions are
being prevented. 


David Roberts: 


This radical global transparency on methane emissions seems like
it's going to be fascinating to watch from an international
politics point of view.


Sarah Smith:  


It will be. We're going to know a lot more about methane sources
and a lot more about carbon dioxide sources, too. I hope both can
be tackled simultaneously — they absolutely must be to have a
chance of maintaining a safe climate.


David Roberts: 


Do you think there will be substantial developments on methane in
the upcoming COP?


Sarah Smith: 


I am hopeful that methane could be a bright spot out of this
upcoming COP, and that this global methane pledge, when formally
launched, will bring together many more countries to rein in the
pollution.


David Roberts: 


It sounds like there's more and easier potential action on
methane than on CO2, in some ways.


Sarah Smith: 


It is the low-hanging fruit that has been hiding just out of
sight for a long time, and I'm hoping that it will start getting
plucked.


David Roberts:  


It would be truly embarrassing if humanity destroyed itself with
a pollutant that it could have reduced at no cost. That would be
a terrible epitaph. Thank you, Sarah, for coming on and taking
the time. It's very clarifying. 


Sarah Smith: 


It was fun to speak with you.


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