Oil and Gas Firms “Have Had Far Worse Climate Impact Than Thought”
The oil and gas industry has had a far worse impact on the climate than
previously believed, according to a study indicating that human emissions of
fossil methane have been underestimated by up to 40%. Although the research
will add to pressure on fossil fuel companies, scientists said there was cause
for hope because it showed a big extra benefit could come from tighter
regulation of the industry and a faster shift towards renewable energy.
Methane has a
greenhouse effect that is about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a
20-year period and is responsible for at least 25 percent of global heating,
according to the UN Environment Programme. In the past two
centuries, the amount of methane
in the atmosphere has more than doubled, though there has long been
uncertainty about whether the source was biological—from agriculture, livestock
or landfills—or from fossil fuels. There were also doubts about what share of
fossil methane was naturally released and what share was from industry.
Earlier estimates were
based on intermittent, bottom-up monitoring of oil and gas companies and
comparisons with geological evidence from the end of the Pleistocene epoch,
about 11,600 years ago. For a more accurate
comparison, a team at the University of Rochester in the US examined levels of
methane in the pre-industrial era about 300 years ago. This was achieved by
analyzing air from that period trapped in glaciers in Greenland. The sample –
made up of about a tonne of ice – was extracted with a Blue Ice Drill,
capable of producing the world’s biggest ice cores.
The findings, published in Nature,
suggest the share of naturally released fossil methane has been overestimated
by “an order of magnitude”, which means that human activities are 25-40 percent
more responsible for fossil methane in the atmosphere than thought....
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2020/02/oil-and-gas-firms-have-had-far-worse-climate-impact-than-thought/
