Satellites Are the New Climate Police for Oil and Gas Polluters

• Fifty oil and gas companies pledged to zero out methane emissions by 2030 at the UN climate summit.
• Satellites are being deployed to track whether these companies actually meet their promises.
• Adnoc, Saudi Aramco, ExxonMobil, Shell and other international oil majors signed on.

Catherine Boudreau reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Erin Snodgrass reported from Los Angeles.

Satellites are the next tool that will hold oil and gas companies accountable in their promise to cut methane emissions and slow global warming.

The United Arab Emirates, host of this year’s UN climate summit COP28, on Saturday announced that dozens of oil and gas companies — accounting for 40% of global production — aim to nearly eliminate their methane emissions by 2030. Many state-owned oil companies signed on, including the UAE’s Adnoc, as well as Saudi Arabia’s Saudi Aramco. US firms ExxonMobil and Shell, and other international oil majors will also participate.

Shortly after, a separate initiative was announced that will use satellites to track whether the companies keep their promise. The billionaire businessman and philanthropist Michael Bloomberg pledged $40 million to the initiative — a partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund that will launch its own satellite early next year.

“Oil and gas companies often don’t have the data on these methane emissions, including where leaks are happening,” Bloomberg, UN special envoy for climate ambition and solutions, told reporters in Dubai. “Even when data is available, there often aren’t rules and incentives in place to make sure companies do something about it.”

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas with 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide, though it only lingers in the atmosphere for about a decade compared with centuries for carbon dioxide. That short lifespan is why climate scientists say eliminating methane emissions is one of the quickest ways to slow global warming.

The oil and gas industry is responsible for 40% of human-caused methane emissions from leaking wells, compression stations, and pipelines, as well as by routinely burning off excess gas in a practice known as venting and flaring.

Even though numerous countries and oil and gas companies have pledged to slash methane emissions in recent years, they are still rising to record levels, according to the IEA. The agency, university scientists, and environmental groups have published research showing that national governments are significantly undercounting total emissions.

Historically, measuring methane was challenging because the gas is colorless, leaks are unpredictable, and finding them involved expensive field studies with aircraft and handheld infrared cameras. That approach only offered a snapshot in time and the research took a long time to publish.

Those methods have changed over the last decade. A new generation of satellites can now pinpoint methane leaks almost anywhere and, within days, computers equipped with AI models can calculate the amount of emissions escaping. This, in turn, means oil and gas companies responsible for the plumes can be notified faster and potentially take action.

The UN last year launched its own methane alert and response system that uses satellites to monitor emissions and notify countries and companies. Since then, 1,500 methane plumes were identified and some governments took action, including Argentina.

The 50 oil and gas companies that signed a “decarbonization charter” on Saturday in Dubai agreed to eliminate routine flaring, improve the way they monitor methane leaks, and report progress on reducing emissions.

COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber, who also heads Adnoc, during a speech on Saturday said that tackling methane emissions are “a quick and easy win.” Adnoc earlier this year already promised to zero-out the pollutant by 2030, even as it plans to expand oil production.

“If companies deliver, we calculate it means reducing methane emission by 80% to 90%, which is critical,” EDF President Fred Krupp told reporters. “But that only happens if there’s accountability.”

The satellite being launched by EDF, known as MethaneSAT, can regularly monitor methane emissions from regions accounting for much of the world’s oil and gas production. That includes emerging and developing economies, where state-owned oil companies have been largely absent from methane pledges until now.

The data gathered by satellites can also help climate advocates push governments to implement tougher methane laws. EDF and Bloomberg Philanthropies are working with the IEA, UN, and the climate nonprofit RMI on its accountability push.

The EPA’s ‘super emitter’ program

The US and European Union are already cracking down on methane emissions. The US Environmental Protection Agency on Saturday finalized regulations that will reduce an estimated 58 million tons of methane emissions over the next 15 years. That figure is comparable to the emissions released by the entire US power sector in 2021, the agency said. The rules require companies to monitor leaks, limit flaring at oil wells, and reduce emissions from equipment like pumps and storage tanks.

A “super emitter” program will allow certain third parties that detect large methane plumes to submit data to EPA, which will do its own verification before notifying the oil and gas company responsible.

The methane that will be captured, rather than released into the atmosphere, would be enough to heat 7.8 millions homes this winter, EPA officials said during a press conference Friday. Once fully implemented, the rule will prevent the emissions of the equivalent of 1.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, they said.

The EU in November agreed to its first-ever law directing fossil fuel companies to measure and report their methane emissions, and bans most flaring and venting by 2027.

The US and EU are part of the Global Methane Pledge that calls for a 30% reduction in methane emissions by 2030. At least 155 countries have signed the pledge, which launched in 2021 at the UN climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.

However, China and Russia — the top two producers of methane emissions in the world — aren’t signatories. China in November published its own plan to reduce the pollutant, but it doesn’t include any hard targets. The country’s state-owned oil companies are also absent from the “decabonization charter” announced in Dubai.

Melanie Robinson, global climate program director at the World Resources Institute, said in a statement that the methane commitments were encouraging but require strong measures to hold oil and gas companies accountable.

She added that the oil and gas sector still isn’t being held accountable for all the emissions created by the fuel they sell to other industries. That’s akin to a cigarette maker “claiming no responsibility for the impact of their product once it leaves the factory door,” Robinson said, adding that voluntary promises alone won’t acheive global climate goals.