Why a New Gas Power Boom Is Putting Methane Emissions Back in the Spotlight

Methane is one of the most potent greenhouse gases, and global efforts to curb methane emissions are accelerating. Beginning later this decade, the European Union will impose new methane rules on oil and gas imports, and major energy-importing countries across Asia are paying closer attention to the emissions profile of the fuels they buy.

The policy outlook in the United States, however, is very different. Under the Trump administration, federal methane regulations have been delayed or rolled back, even as policymakers promote expanded use of natural gas, particularly in the power sector. This divergence raises questions not only about climate impacts, but about competitiveness. As international buyers increasingly factor environmental performance into purchasing decisions, U.S. producers’ ability to measure and reduce methane emissions may shape their access to global markets. More broadly, natural gas’s credibility as a lower-carbon fossil fuel hinges on keeping methane leaks to a minimum.

Mark Brownstein has spent more than two decades focused on identifying, measuring, and reducing methane leaks across the natural gas value chain. He discusses why methane has moved to the center of climate and energy debates, how international pressure is reshaping expectations for fossil fuel producers, and how new tools, including a recently released global methane scorecard developed with the International Energy Agency and the United Nations, are helping to track progress. He also explains why cutting methane emissions remains one of the most achievable and cost-effective climate actions available today.

Full Transcript

Andy Stone: Welcome to the Energy Policy Now podcast from the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. I’m Andy Stone.

Methane is one of the most powerful greenhouse gasses, and global efforts to control methane emissions are accelerating. Beginning later this decade, the European Union will implement new methane regulations that will place limits on emissions associated with oil and gas imports. And across Asia, major energy importing countries are paying closer attention to methane emissions associated with the fuels they buy. The outlook in the United States, however, is very different. Under the Trump presidency, federal policy has moved sharply away from regulating methane emissions, with the delaying or rolling back of rules aimed at limiting releases from the oil and gas sector. At the same time, the administration has promoted expanded use of natural gas in the power sector.

This divergence raises serious questions, not just about climate impacts, but also about competitiveness. As global energy buyers increasingly factor environmental performance into their purchasing decisions, the ability of US fossil fuel producers to transparently measure and reduce methane emissions could determine access to international markets. More broadly, natural gas’s credibility as a lower carbon fossil fuel depends on methane leaks being minimized.

On today’s podcast, we’re joined by one of the world’s leading voices on methane mitigation. Mark Brownstein is Senior Vice President for Energy Transition at the Environmental Defense Fund and a member of the Kleinman Center for Energy policy’s board of advisors. Over the past two decades, Mark has led efforts to identify, measure and reduce methane emissions across the natural gas value chain. Most recently, EDF, in conjunction with the International Energy Agency and the United Nations Environment Program, released a new global scorecard assessing industry progress on methane management. Mark will walk us through the assessment and explain why, relative to many other climate challenges, methane reduction is a readily- achievable, low-cost climate opportunity. Mark, welcome to the podcast.

Mark Brownstein: Andy, thank you for having me.

Stone: And again, thank you very much for coming on the morning of January the fifth— the first working day of the new year— early in the morning after the break. I really appreciate it.

Brownstein: Yeah, no problem. And very much looking forward to the conversation.

Stone: So let’s jump right in. So recent estimates suggest that the US could add about 100 gigawatts of new natural gas-fired power capacity over the next five years. And that’s nearly three times what we’ve added in the last five years. So to get us started, my question for you is, why is demand for new gas generation in this country, which had been on the wane— why is it suddenly picking up so dramatically?

Brownstein: I think here in the United States, you’ve got a confluence of circumstance. One, you have a lot of aging power plants that are on their way to retirement, and a need to replace that capacity. Two, there is an urgent need to decarbonize our electric system. And three, there is increasing demand for electricity coming from both data centers associated with AI and cryptocurrency on the one hand, and just the simple fact that new technologies like electric vehicles and home heat pumps and and other technologies are coming into the marketplace that are creating demand for new electricity. So you’ve got this sort of confluence of events.

Many people look to natural gas because it is cleaner than coal. But what’s also true is that in most circumstances, renewable electricity is actually cheaper and cleaner than both coal and gas. Under the Biden administration, there was a concerted effort to enable the development of renewable energy resources and take advantage of this low-cost and cleaner opportunity. The Trump administration now has thrown some roadblocks in the way of development of wind and solar, and that is creating some opportunity for gas that otherwise wasn’t there.

Stone: So at the same time that we’re seeing this increase in new gas-generating projects, as you just mentioned, to to address the new demand— AI, data centers, et cetera— the Trump administration has moved to roll back regulations to limit the climate impacts of the same fuel of natural gas. Can you tell us what are the steps that the administration has been taking again to roll back methane emissions protections?

Brownstein: As it relates to natural gas, the Trump administration really has been doing two things. One is, they’ve been making it impossible to permit new solar and wind facilities. And this means that we don’t have access to the lowest-cost electric generation at the time that we need new generation. So this is costing all of us both in terms of the bills that we’ll pay in our monthly electric bill, and will also cost us in terms of the air pollution and other consequences of using gas rather than renewables.

But additionally, the Trump administration has been taking steps to suspend regulations that would affect the cleanliness of natural gas. What do I mean by that? Well, natural gas burns cleaner than coal. So it is clearly preferable to coal. But what many people don’t realize is that natural gas, being methane, has a significant impact on air quality and the climate as a consequence of the fact that there are emissions associated with the production, transportation and use of gas. Venting, flaring, leaks along the system all contribute to an air pollution burden that is created when natural gas is not produced responsibly.

The previous administration had enacted a set of regulatory requirements that would have significantly reduced the amount of venting, flaring and leaks associated with the production, transportation and use of natural gas. This administration has suspended implementation of those requirements. And there is some concern that they will act to actually repeal those requirements. And so what we have is a situation where gas could be cleaner. It could be better for the environment than it is. But the Trump administration is standing in the way of making that happen.

Stone: So for example, you have the EPA methane performance standards. That’s one of the specific areas where the Trump administration has moved to roll those back or delay those standards in several other areas, right?

Brownstein: Yes. The Environmental Protection Agency had a set of oil and gas standards for methane. And additionally, there were requirements associated with production of oil and gas on federal lands that have also been suspended. I think about 70 percent of natural gas is produced on federal lands. And the reason why that’s important is because every molecule of natural gas that escapes into the atmosphere is not only a pollution problem, it’s a loss of a economic resource. The total amount of methane losses from the oil and gas industry would essentially provide enough energy to serve the needs of about somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of US households. So this loss of methane from the oil and gas system is not only a pollution problem, it’s an economic problem. And it’s somewhat ironic that an administration that talks about energy dominance and the value proposition of US oil and gas production would be so indifferent to losses on the system, losses that have real economic consequences for the country as well as environmental consequences.

Stone: I want to get into that point as well. I want to ask you, how exactly does methane get into the atmosphere? I think I’ve said “leaks” so far on this podcast. But it’s not just about leaks. It’s about emissions of several different types. How does methane from the oil and gas sector, again, get into the atmosphere? What are we looking for here?

Brownstein: So again, natural gas is methane. That is the primary. And so when it is extracted from the ground, it is processed, put into a pipeline, transported across large geographic differences, transferred into city utility gas systems, and then delivered to your home or business. So at each point along the way, we know that there are losses— sometimes at the point of production, sometimes at the point of processing, sometimes along the gas pipeline system, and certainly leaks that happen in the city utility systems. And in fact, there are even leaks from appliances in people’s homes as well. So at each point in the process, we know that there are losses.

Additionally, there are certain production practices where the system is actually designed to emit methane as part of the normal operation. There are valves in the production fields that operate by varying gas pressure. These are high-emitting valves. And they can be changed out with valves that operate either using air pressure or using electricity to open and close. But these high-bleed pneumatic valves, they’re called, are designed to actually emit methane as a normal part of operation. Additionally, a certain amount of natural gas is produced associated with oil. And that’s often the case in the Permian Basin, which is the major source of oil and gas in the United States. West Texas and eastern New Mexico. And here in the Permian, what often happens is that the company is in a rush to monetize the oil, and because the oil is so valuable, it’s somewhat indifferent to whether it can monetize the gas that comes up along with the oil. And if it can’t find a ready market for that gas, the companies will either vent or flare it. And that is also a source of methane pollution.

Stone: So we’ve got this context here of rising gas demand. Not just in the power sector, but also, I would imagine, LNG exports, which are also expected to continue to increase. We’ve got new actions rolling back protections against the emissions of methane. And so that’s the context. But the interesting thing here is, as you’ve pointed out, methane is a highly solvable problem. There aren’t technological challenges really in the way here. I think one of the biggest challenges may be identifying the leaks themselves, but tell us about the fundamental cleanability and addressability of the methane problem.

Brownstein: Environmental Defense Fund has been working on the issue of methane emissions associated with the oil and gas industry for over a decade. We partnered with some in the industry and with leading academic researchers, such as at University of Texas, and we did some of the first field studies of emissions over 10 years ago. And even at that time, we saw in the Permian Basin and in other places in Texas that there were oil and gas operations where methane emissions were virtually zero. And right next door, we saw similar facilities where methane emissions were very high.

So we know as a practical matter that is possible to extract oil and gas with minimum methane emissions. We know from our subsequent studies of pipelines and city utility systems that is entirely possible to design and maintain systems that are virtually leak-free. And so what we take away from that is, is it’s technologically possible to control this problem.

What’s often missing are two things. One is information. Oftentimes, companies are unaware of just how much methane is escaping from their operations. Oftentimes, because they’re not required to monitor and measure their emissions. And sometimes, even when they do know that these emissions are taking place, they don’t have the incentive to capture it. Because either the economics don’t favor it, or because the regulations don’t require it.

I’ll go back to the Permian Basin here. Again, about 40% of America’s oil and gas comes from this region of the country, which is, roughly speaking, West Texas and eastern New Mexico. And as a consequence of the satellite that we built and launched a few years ago, we were able to assess the relative emissions performance of producers in West Texas and in eastern New Mexico. And what we have seen from those satellite measurements is, in fact, that emissions in New Mexico are less than half of what they are in West Texas. And that’s not because the companies are different, and that’s not because the production characteristics are fundamentally different. It really has to do with the fact that New Mexico, the state, has acted to regulate methane emissions from the oil and gas industry, where Texas has not. And so it’s a good example where one, regulatory frameworks, we know matter. And two, that there are practical things that the industry can do to reduce emissions. And we see evidence that they can be effective. It just simply comes down to a matter of will on the part of the companies, on the part of regulators, to make it happen.

Stone: Well, it’s interesting you point that out, that the regulations really impact what the industry is doing, particularly in this example of New Mexico and Texas you’ve just given. But it’s also interesting that many of the larger oil and gas producers, at least in this country, have tended to support rules lowering methane intensity. Why is that? And that comes from the industry itself.

Brownstein: Well, for many in the industry, particularly some of the larger producers, they understand that in order to make the claim that gas is a cleaner alternative to coal and a legitimate strategy for delivering cleaner energy to all parts of the world— they can’t make those claims and at the same time allow for methane waste to continue unabated.

Methane drives nearly a third of the warming that our planet is experiencing right now. And roughly 40 percent of that methane burden that’s going into the atmosphere is coming from oil and gas operations globally. So when you have a situation where you know the pollutant is so powerful, and you know that the pollutant is so plentiful, and you also know that you have the technologies and the capabilities to minimize those losses, if you’re not doing anything about it, then you’re not part of the solution. You’re really part of the problem. And so for, I think, some of the world’s largest producers, they want to be seen as doing something constructive. And know that they can’t sustain that kind of claim, those kind of reputations, if they’re not taking action to fix an obvious and fixable problem.

Stone: So the support for regulation on methane emissions, though it’s not exactly uniform. And I want to ask you, who are the groups or the companies generally that do not support the regulation? Why does it seem that these producers or groups carry such weight in federal policy discussions— again, which tend toward deregulation, particularly at the national level?

Brownstein: These large global producers that I was just describing— you know, the household names, like Shell or Chevron or Exxon or Total or BP. These are the names that we all are familiar with. They’re responsible for roughly 25 percent of oil and gas production in the United States. Close to 75 percent of total oil and gas production in the United States is in the hands of what are known as independent producers. And many of these independent producers are smaller companies, companies that aren’t very well known to the public— often not even publicly-owned companies, but basically are the creatures of individual private equity firms or or even families. And these independents are a varied lot. Some operate their business to a standard of high integrity. I’ve seen numerous cases of family-owned businesses where the family patriarch or the family matriarch takes seriously the obligation to be a good steward of the resource and be a good steward of the land and good steward of the environment. There are definitely examples of independents that think and act that way.

But many of them are, frankly, indifferent to issues of environment and social responsibility, and are just simply about maximizing their own personal return. Many of these smaller companies, too, are ideologically opposed to government regulation and government intervention. Those of us who have been entertained by Landman, the series on Paramount— that’s a little bit of a window into that culture. And the truth of the matter is, those smaller companies play an outsized role in US energy politics precisely because they are very close to the local politicians. They’re very close to the state politicians. They’re very close to the local representatives in Congress. And so they have an outsized influence on how both state and federal government think and act.

Stone: So I want to take this out to a bit of a wider lens. And one of the major global developments on methane regulation is taking place in Europe, which has a methane rule which will take effect in 2030 that will cover imports of oil and gas and the methane content in those imports. What will the rule require from producers, particularly those outside of the EU and here in the US?

Brownstein: First, let’s take a step back. The European Union, for many years, imported most of its natural gas from Russia. And in the years leading up to the Ukraine war, there was increasing concern in Europe about that dependency. Not just because natural gas, although cleaner than coal, still has a significant climate footprint, and Europe is very concerned about climate change, but also because the increasing recognition that with that dependence on Russian gas came a significant methane footprint associated with poor production practices in Russia.

And so the methane issue was beginning to take hold in Europe. And then, of course, the Ukraine situation occurred, and Europe very quickly sought to distance itself from being dependent on Russian gas. And that has led now to Europe looking towards increased imports of natural gas through LNG, liquefied natural gas, that they would get either from the Middle East or they would get from the United States. And what Europe is trying to do is balance the need for continued supply of natural gas, at least for the next several decades, with the need to make sure that the gas that they are importing is as clean as it could possibly be. And so a year ago, they enacted a legislation that, in the first instance, will require anybody selling gas into Europe to do reporting on the methane emissions associated with the production and transportation of that gas into Europe.

Stone: Let me ask you, does that cover oil and gas, or is that just covering gas?

Brownstein: It covers oil and gas. Because as I said, methane can be a byproduct of oil production. And so it covers both. So the first set of requirements are simply about reporting on emissions associated with gas being imported. And then by the end of 2030, they are proposing to set a standard that anyone selling gas into Europe would have to meet. That standard hasn’t been set yet, and so it’s an open question as to what that standard will be.

It’s also an open question as to what the consequences will be of not meeting the standard. You know, I think the general expectation is that the standard will sort of act as a as a fee or a tariff of sorts, where if you meet the standard or below the standard, your gas comes into the European Union without cost. But if you’re above the standard, you would pay some kind of pollution fee as an incentive to reduce the emissions. I think that’s what most people expect. But that standard hasn’t been set yet. That will come later in the decade.

Stone: I understand some reporting is going to be required before that 2030 proposed implementation date? Is that right?

Brownstein: Yeah. The reporting essentially will begin sometime this year.

Stone: And the methane content threshold, or rules, will be set at some later date still to be determined.

Brownstein: Still to be determined. But you know, it’s notable that the industry itself has talked about a standard of 0.2 percent. and many of the leading producers around the world have committed to achieving that kind of standard. So many people assume that something like a 0.2 percent standard would be the one that Europe would adopt, since it is essentially consistent with what major global producers have committed to and some claim to already be achieving.

Stone: And that would be point 0.2 percent of overall volumes escaping into the atmosphere.

Brownstein: Of marketed gas.

Stone: Got it. Okay. So other major LNG buyers— and I’m thinking about Asia right now, Japan, South Korea, China— are also starting to factor methane performance into their own procurement of fuels. So I want to understand what’s the motivation there, and how substantively or materially are they considering a methane emissions in the gas supply?

Brownstein: Well, I spend a lot of time in in Japan. And Japan, somewhat similar to Europe, is very dependent on natural gas. Japan does not have a whole lot of native energy resources itself, and unlike Europe, the United States or even China, doesn’t have the kind of land mass that allows for large-scale deployment of renewables. And so Japan really has has some serious challenges in terms of energy resource and securing energy resource to sustain their economy. And so they continue to look to natural gas as an important energy resource well into the future. But as the same at the same time, they recognize that as a necessity, they also very much appreciate the realities of climate change and understand that their continued dependence on natural gas, it won’t be tenable if they’re not taking steps to make sure that the gas that they’re securing is clean. Has a low methane footprint.

And so as a first step, they, in partnership with South Korea, have launched something called the Clean Initiative, which is basically working with major gas purchasers in Japan and Korea to require information disclosure around the purchases that are being made. So unlike Europe, this is a voluntary initiative. But in Japan, all of the country’s major gas purchasers have signed up and are starting to now require a reporting of the methane footprint associated with the gas that’s being purchased.

I think it’s a little too early to say the degree to which that will ultimately lead to Japan either voluntarily or otherwise adopting the kind of standard that Europe is committed to adopting. But it is something that is increasingly being discussed in Japan. Again, because they’re trying to square the circle, if you will, between, on the one hand, being dependent on gas, but at the same time being responsible about the gas that they are purchasing.

Stone: So it sounds like at this point, globally, we’re starting to see new reporting requirements being implemented— in the case of the EU, in the next few years— or talked about. And that would sound like that would be the first step towards actually implementing standards requirements for the methane emissions associated with the fuels that any country would import.

Brownstein: Yeah. And here, I think there are two developments here that feed this trend. One is, as I said, Environmental Defense Fund has been working with academia and industry for over a decade in doing field studies on methane emissions. And we’ve learned a lot through that process, and now others have begun to do their own work. So, two things that have come out of that. One is a better understanding as to the magnitude of the challenge and where some of the biggest opportunities are to make reductions. But I think the other thing that we’ve learned from these field studies over the decade, is we’ve learned a lot about how to do measurements. And that has ultimately now led to the UN Environment Program crafting a program called the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership 2.0, where companies sign up to— and commit over a period of three years— to go from reporting their emissions based on engineering estimates to reporting their emissions based on emissions measurements on an asset-by-asset basis. And there are well over 100 companies now globally that have committed to OGMP 2.0.

And so you’re beginning to develop, within the industry, a better understanding of how to do field measurements and how to do accurate reporting. And that information is slowly but surely making its way into the public domain. And that’s part of what makes the requirements that Europe is developing, and the requirements that Japan and Korea and others are developing—  that’s part of what makes that possible.

The other thing that makes that possible is the emergence of satellite technology, which is capable of assessing emissions from space. And the reason that’s important is because that gives you the opportunity to do comprehensive measurements on a global scale over a relatively ongoing timeframe. I mentioned earlier that Environmental Defense Fund, two years ago, launched a satellite called MethaneSAT, which, up until this past July, was giving us that kind of ongoing data for roughly 80 percent of all oil and gas production fields worldwide.

Unfortunately, the satellite— as sometimes happens with complex technology, the satellite stopped operating in July. But what we’ve learned from that experience is the value of this kind of data. And what we’ve also learned is that the technology certainly exists to be able to do it. We’re actively now looking at the degree to which we, either by ourselves or in partnership with others, would build a second satellite. But the truth of the matter is that the kind of technology that we’ve pioneered is is likely to be a reality in the years ahead. And I think this, too, is what’s feeding the confidence on the part of European policymakers and others that these kinds of comprehensive reporting requirements are not only necessary, but doable.

Stone: Well, it’s interesting. So this OGMP, or the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership that you’ve just been talking about, it really is seeking to set a global standard for methane reporting. I want to note that EDF, along with some other organizations— the United Nations Environment Program among them— was responsible for putting that in place again about five or six years ago. And as you just noted, one of the key elements of OGMP 2.0 is this movement away from engineering estimates of emissions to actual reporting and measurement of those at the site. You mentioned MethaneSAT, which is no longer operational. There is another satellite, Tanager-1, which is doing something, I think, relatively similar. But this is an important change. Because now that you have this monitoring on a global scale, there is no longer this deniability that existed before that our gas is clean, right?

Brownstein: Yeah, Tanager-1 carbon mapper is a great tool. And where that tool is particularly strong is that that tool has a narrower field of view than MethaneSAT had. And so it is a great tool for finding what we call super emitters, significant leaks from specific assets. It’s a little bit like a radar gun on an interstate. You can catch the super speeders.

Stone: Capturing those leaks is really important, I believe. Because I think you mentioned earlier in this conversation, about a decade or a decade and a half ago, the EPA had come up with some estimates for methane emissions in the US. Your work and the work of other organizations said that those estimates were short by about 60 percent, and that 60 percent was largely due to these uncaptured leaks. Is that correct?

Brownstein: Yeah. And so for a period of time, I think many in the industry and many in the policy community zeroed in on the importance of capturing what are called these “super emitters.”

Stone: The really large leaks, essentially.

Brownstein: The really large leaks. And there are some private companies that also do this for the industry now. GHGSat, based in Canada, is an example. And that’s all great, right? I mean, you want to catch the super speeders on the interstate. They’re dangerous. But I think what we’ve now learned through the 18 months that MethaneSAT was operating is that less than half of the total emissions coming from the global oil and gas industry are coming from these super emitters.

So you really need both types of tools, right? You need the tool that’s going to capture the super emitters and be able to find them and then verify that the problem has been fixed. But what you also need is, is you need a tool like MethaneSAT, which is capable of giving you a better understanding of the fuller picture of the problem. Because over half of the emissions that are coming from the oil and gas industry are coming from smaller sources. More chronic problems. Not the super speeders. That if you don’t get after them, it means that you really haven’t addressed the problem.

Stone: So I want to point out here something pretty important, and that is that US oil and gas operators are generally considered relatively clean in the global context. But the global verification, the requirements that we’ve just been talking about, really focus on proof. On standardized measurement, transparent reporting, and verification of methane emissions. To what extent does the federal policy stand in the United States impact, jeopardize, or not, the ability of US gas to remain a credible supplier in global markets?

Brownstein: Again, one of the things that we’ve learned from the 18 months of MethaneSAT operation is that emissions performance in the United States varies from place to place. At least as insofar as methane emissions are concerned, there is a substantial difference in the methane footprint of gas coming from the Marcellus in western Pennsylvania versus gas coming from the Permian Basin in West Texas.

Stone: So those local rules, again, are important.

Brownstein: It’s not just local rules. In some cases it’s difference in the characteristics of the basin itself. In the Permian Basin, it’s a lot of associated gas, where, again, the incentive is to capture the economic value of the oil, and there’s less concern with what happens with the associated gas. Whereas in western Pennsylvania, it’s largely about gas production. And so therefore there is a greater focus on making full use of the gas that’s being extracted.

In some cases, some production in some of these basins is newer. And therefore, the maintenance issues associated with the problem haven’t crept in yet. And in some cases, there are differences in culture. Some of the operators in the Marcellus— EQT is a good example of a high quality operator, in many respects. And that matters.

So I think it’s a variety of things. But the simple fact of the matter is that there is a lot of variation in terms of methane emissions performance in the United States. And to just simply ascribe one number to the US, I think, does an injustice, in some respects, to those who are doing it well, and giving a little bit of a hiding place to those who are not doing it well. It’s one of the reasons why we have endeavored to develop emissions reporting on at least production basin by production basin, so that you better reflect the differing values in US production across different regions.

I mean, the importance of having federal regulation, of course, is that you create a level playing field. And that’s why federal regulations ultimately are important. I mean, as a practical matter for you, for US gas to deliver on its promise of being a cleaner source of supply to the rest of the world, you should not have huge disparities between eastern New Mexico and West Texas.

Stone: Getting to that point. So, as the industry recognizes that its social license to operate is going to be dependent, to some extent, on the cleanliness of the gas that it produces and sells—  you mentioned the OGMP 2.0, which is the reporting standard that you developed. There are also other initiatives, such as the Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter, which dates to just two or three years ago, which now consists of about 55 companies, all of which have pledged to reduce their methane flaring emissions and go to operational net zero by the middle of the century.

Brownstein: Yeah. And let me just say a word about that. So a couple of years ago, many people will recall that the annual UN climate conference was held in the United Arab Emirates. It was hosted in Dubai. And that, at the time, was considered to be a very controversial choice, because, of course, the United Arab Emirates is a major global oil and gas producer. And the conference was being chaired by Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, who, among many titles, is the CEO of the Abu Dhabi national oil company, or ADNOC. And many people were concerned that an oil company executive shouldn’t be in charge of the climate conference.

We took the view that Dr. Sultan was sincere in his efforts to want to advance global climate policy, and was sincere in his efforts to want to get the oil and gas industry more constructively engaged in the climate issue. And so we worked with him and others to develop what was known as the Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter, which as you state, now has 56 global companies committed to a set of commitments, including the achievement of near zero methane emissions by the end of 2030. We continue to think that this Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter was certainly a signature achievement of that climate conference, and remains an important framework for achieving significant methane reductions and reducing the overall carbon footprint of the oil and gas industry.

But you know, in the immortal words of Ronald Reagan, we’ve taken the view that we will trust but verify. And so over the last two years, we have worked with the International Energy Agency and the UN Environment program’s International Methane Emissions Observatory to assess not just how the 56 oil and gas decarbonization charter members are doing, but actually, we’re assessing how 116 of the world’s leading oil and gas companies are doing against 25 metrics associated with methane emissions. One hundred and sixteen companies equals roughly 80 percent of total oil and gas production globally. So we’re looking not just at the companies that have made commitments. We’re looking at a broader universe of companies, and holding them all to the same set of standards.

Stone: Well, you released your first progress report on that just in November, the Pledges to Progress 2025 report, which actually found a wide range of company performance around efforts to manage methane.

Brownstein: I’ll start with the good news. Of the 116 companies, 70 of them — so roughly 60 percent of the total — have now methane targets essentially consistent with achieving near zero emissions by the end of 2030. So that’s enormous progress from where we were five years ago, where you had a much smaller subset of companies committed to the issue. And there are ongoing efforts to recruit more companies to those standards. So that’s the good news.

I think the more challenging news is that you then look at the number of companies that have laid out explicit reporting of emissions, and you look at the number of companies that have laid out explicit plans for abating emissions. And there, the numbers are much lower. I’d say only a quarter of the 116 companies are doing a reasonably good job of emissions reporting. And again, only about a quarter of companies are doing a reasonably good job of laying out what their mitigation plans are. That needs to improve.

Stone: So as you mentioned, a wide range of performance. I think the average score was nine out of 25 across all the companies. There are some companies that do dramatically better, and some companies that did dramatically worse. I think the Norwegian National Oil Company was the top performer with a score of 23, I believe.

Brownstein: Yeah. So, high scores. Of the 25 criteria, companies that scored a 20 or better are, again, some of the household names that we’ve talked about. BP, Chevron, Conoco, ExxonMobil. ENI, which is an Italian company. Shell, Total. And additionally, some of what we call the international national oil companies — some of the bigger national oil companies, like Equinor from Norway. Petrobras, Eco Patrol, Aramco — Saudi Aramco — do pretty well. So that’s encouraging. But we need to get to a point where all 116 companies are achieving these levels.

One of the things that we’re looking for is greater engagement on the part of these leading companies with their brother and sister companies. One of the characteristics of the global oil and gas industry is that many of these leading companies — Chevron, Exxon, Conoco, Equinor, Aramco — operate in partnership with national oil companies around the world. What we’re expecting to see in the next couple of years is more sharing of technology, more sharing of practices, more sharing of standards between the larger companies that are beginning to get a good handle on their methane emissions, and the smaller companies that they partner with in places around the world. So that is one way in which we’re hoping to see positive change.

Another, of course, is that we do believe that there is a role for independent verification, monitoring verification. It’s one of the reasons why we’re continuing to look at the degree to which we can replace the capacity of MethaneSAT with something. It’s one of the reasons why the Carbon Mapper project is so important, and frankly, it’s one of the reasons why reporting standards like the OGMP 2.0 are so incredibly important. One of the things that we see is that companies that are part of OGMP 2.0 are the companies that are, in fact, in the lead, in terms of not just the commitments they make, but the ability to actually report data associated with those commitments. Which, of course, gives greater confidence that the progress is being made.

Stone: Mark, a final question for you here. If we get methane reporting correct, and address methane emissions, what does that mean for the future of gas as a power resource?

Brownstein: Well, look. In order for natural gas to deliver on its promise of being a lower carbon alternative to coal and potentially a constructive part of a global energy transition, it’s incredibly important that we get a handle on methane emissions. Again, methane drives nearly a third of the warming that the planet is experiencing right now. And given the fact that methane is a valuable energy resource as well as a powerful climate pollutant, there’s all the reason in the world for both policymakers and industry to act quickly to address this challenge.

And what we’ve seen is that when both countries and companies take the issue seriously, there are things that can be done to reduce emissions. So the task over the next few years is to expand the universe of countries and companies that are taking the issue seriously, backed up with reporting requirements and independent verification that satellites and other technologies can provide. That, I think, is the winning formula.

But it’s also really important to note that solving the twin challenges of energy security and affordability, on the one hand, and addressing the climate crisis on the other, will require more than simply doubling down on gas use. It really requires us to continue to invest into the alternative technologies, like renewables, that in many cases not only are cleaner, but also cheaper. So as important as gas is in the near term, and as important as gas may be for certain economies in certain places over the mid-term, we can’t lose sight of the fact that a truly clean, secure, affordable energy future requires us to do more than just simply double down on gas production and gas use.

So I go back to something I said at the beginning of our conversation, which is, the thing that we can’t be doing is throwing arbitrary roadblocks in front of the kind of energy innovation that has given us low-cost solar or low-cost wind. And we can’t be indulging policies which put a thumb on the scale of fossil fuels to the exclusion of what really are, in many cases, better alternatives. Not just in the United States, not just in Europe, but in many parts of the Global South as well.

And so the reason why our methane work and Environmental Defense Fund is part of our overall energy transition campaign is because we understand that we need to do everything possible to reduce methane emissions because of the powerful impact that they have on the climate accelerating the rate of warming today, but we can’t focus on methane emissions to the exclusion of making sure that we are, in fact, pursuing a balanced energy future that is fundamentally cleaner and fundamentally cheaper. And that requires us to take full advantage of the new technologies that are coming into the marketplace that make that happen.

Stone: Mark, thanks very much for talking.

Brownstein: My pleasure. Really enjoyed it, Andy.