BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 22
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
Methane emissions reduction creates an opportunity – a real opportunity – to make oil and gas industry part of the solution to achieve sustainable energy system, Trend quoted Wael Abd El Moati, Gas Industries Expert at Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) as saying.
“The contribution of oil and gas sector to the global methane emissions is estimated at 9-12 percent. It’s not 70 or 80 or 90 percent. We are a component in the other big components,” he noted.
Yury Sentyurin, Secretary General of the GECF noted that around 80 percent of oil and gas measures abatement practices could be implemented at a negative or low-cost.
Agricultural activities are the biggest contributor to methane emissions, followed by the oil and gas industry, accounting for around 25 percent, of which 77 percent comes from the upstream sector. Methane is more than 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. It is, however, much more short-lived compared to CO2.
Reducing human-caused methane emissions is one of the most cost-effective strategies to rapidly reduce the rate of warming and contribute significantly to global efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C. Available targeted methane measures, together with additional measures that contribute to priority development goals, can simultaneously reduce human-caused methane emissions by as much as 45 percent, or 180 million tonnes a year (Mt/yr) by 2030. This will avoid nearly 0.3°C of global warming by the 2040s and complement all long-term climate change mitigation efforts. It would also, each year, prevent 255 000 premature deaths, 775 000 asthmarelated hospital visits, 73 billion hours of lost labour from extreme heat, and 26 million tonnes of crop losses globally.
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