Brussels will force oil and gas companies to detect and repair methane leaks to fight climate change

The Community Executive will prohibit the routine burning and ventilation of this gas in fossil fuel plants

Brussels has decided to put a stop to methane, the second gas responsible for climate change, behind carbon dioxide (CO₂). The European Commission wants to force energy companies in the oil, gas and coal sector, responsible for 19% of these emissions, to detect and repair any leaks located in their transport network, pipelines and tanks. The EU Executive, which has presented on Wednesday the new measures against climate change, also intends to prohibit the routine burning and ventilation in fossil fuel plants, that is, the famous flame that is often seen crowning the chimneys of energy infrastructures, turned almost into a symbol of prospecting, and that Brussels considers a “usual bad practice” and perfectly avoidable. The idea is to extinguish this flame forever.

The new proposal on methane comes in a week in which Brussels has put on the table an almost unfathomable battery of measures aimed at the ecological transition, with initiatives of all kinds ranging from the energy efficiency of buildings to the promotion of the Community railway network or the regulation of the booming hydrogen and gas sector; it is the second barrage of the so-called European “green deal”, whose first impact came in July of this year, and has set in motion the machinery to approve a huge regulation, which will keep the European Parliament and the Council (body that represents the Member States) engaged in an intense and complex legislative negotiation during the coming months or, most likely, years. All the measures, led by the Executive Vice-President of the Commission, Frans Timmermans, but which have required the coordinated action of different departments of the Community Executive, are aimed at meeting the objective set by the EU of reducing greenhouse gases by 55% by 2030 and achieving climate neutrality by 2050.

“Europe needs to turn the page on fossil fuels and move to cleaner energy sources,” Timmermans said. “To address methane emissions, we propose a strong legal framework to better track and reduce this potent greenhouse gas, helping us meet the Global Methane Commitment and address the climate crisis.” The aim of the EU executive’s measures is to “reduce methane emissions from gas, oil and coal by 80% by 2030 and trigger action on methane outside the EU”, added Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson.

Methane gas, often forgotten, already captured the spotlight during the recent climate summit in Glasgow, in which the EU and the United States promoted an agreement with more than a hundred countries to reduce anthropogenic emissions by 30% in 2030 compared to 2020 levels. The pact was joined by large emitters such as Brazil, Indonesia, Canada, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom, but there were also huge absences, such as those of China, Russia and India.

Methane is responsible for about 25 percent of the global temperature increase on the planet since the pre-industrial era, according to the latest report by the IPCC , the international panel of experts tasked with laying the scientific groundwork on climate change. This gas also has a warming power 80 times higher than that of CO₂ in the first years since it reaches the atmosphere and is a powerful precursor of ozone, contributing to air pollution and affecting health, according to data provided by the Commission.

The European initiative finds it difficult, however, to regulate the energy sector beyond the borders of the EU, where 90% of oil and gas comes from, a figure that has been growing in recent years. The Commission has limited capacity to act in this field, but will rely part of the strategy on its “diplomatic resources”, indicate sources in the Community Executive. And it will seek to force corporations in the sector to increase transparency requirements on methane emissions linked to imports. Companies will have to provide detailed information on emissions outside the EU and the steps taken to mitigate them, data that will be published in a register on global methane emissions. The Twenty-Seven will also use their fleet of European satellites to monitor hot spots with high methane emissions.

The new proposal does not go into agricultural and livestock territory, the main responsible for emissions linked to human activity (around 25% of the total), so Brussels leaves without regulating for the moment powerful methane sources such as cow belching. “Acting on the energy sector is more profitable,” say EU sources responsible for the new regulation. The idea is that by applying technological solutions, such as monitoring and controlling leaks in oil and gas wells, considerable reductions in emissions are achieved.

Sustainable buildings

The EU also aims to reach 2050 with a building stock that meets zero emissions targets. The proposal will require a profound transformation of the sector, where, on average, only 22% of the sources to heat and cool buildings, and 34% of the electricity they consume, has a renewable origin, according to 2019 data provided by the Commission. The EU executive seeks to reduce energy consumption by 14% and promote the renovation of 35 million European homes. The central part of the strategy will be to impose minimum standards to be met by the worst energy-efficient buildings.

85% of eu households were built before the year 2000, of which 75% have “poor” energy performance, and only 11% of buildings undergo some form of refurbishment each year, according to the Commission. And, at present, 15% of the constructions in the EU have category G, the worst within the classification of the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC, for its acronym in English), in which the A is the one with the highest efficiency and lowest climate cost.

Brussels intends to start the renovation with public and non-residential buildings: by 2027, those classified as G must, at a minimum, move to the next category, F. In 2030, they will have to climb another rung, up to class E. In housing, Brussels gives a little more time: type G should become F in 2030, and ascend to category E in 2033.

The proposal also aims to promote the replacement of fossil fuel boilers with other systems without direct greenhouse gas emissions, such as heat pumps and other renewable energy-based technologies; inter alia, Member States will be prohibited from giving any financial incentives to the installation of fossil fuel boilers from 2027.

Aware that the measures may have a strong social cost and could deepen the energy poverty gap, since often the least efficient housing corresponds to lower-income households, Brussels intends to mobilize just over 200,000 million euros, from the recovery plans agreed to get out of the hole of the pandemic and the Social Fund for the Climate, a mechanism still under negotiation aimed at alleviating the foreseeable cracks left in its wake by the ecological transition.

Source: The Country