The National Academies of Sciences wants the government to begin tracking methane emissions for reasons that aren’t limited to climate change.
A new National Academies study released Tuesday said the nation’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory should be updated in a way that would benefit the coal mining and oil and natural gas industries.
“There are a variety of reasons, beyond climate change, to measure, monitor, and track methane emissions,” according to a National Academies press release. “For example, monitoring of methane emissions is important to protecting the health and safety of workers in industries such as coal mining, and recovery of methane can have an economic benefit as a source of energy.”
Methane emissions are gaining a lot of exposure in the media, mainly because part of President Trump’s deregulation agenda targets the repeal of methane regulations created by the Obama administration.
James W.C. White, a University of Colorado professor of geological sciences who headed up the report, said methane “is getting more attention because it is a potent, short-lived greenhouse gas that is increasing.” But the U.S. needs to incorporate advances in measuring the emissions.
“There have been recent advances in our abilities to measure and monitor methane from its many sources, and now we need to strengthen and interlink these different approaches,” White said.
One of the hindrances to updating the U.S. emissions inventory has been the limited focus of using it to meet its obligations under the United Nations framework for curbing greenhouse gas emissions, according to the study.
The federal government’s annual Greenhouse Gas Inventory “has been formulated to meet the reporting requirements” of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and has been adequate in evaluating “long-term national emissions trends,” the report stated. “However, the goals for measuring and monitoring methane in the United States are broader than the [UN] objectives for which the [greenhouse gas inventory] was originally developed.”
Certain types of data used to estimate methane emissions have not been revised in more than a decade and for the most part cannot be verified. The study was funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA and the Energy Department on ways to update the Greenhouse Gas Inventory.
“The goal is to help federal agencies develop inventories with wider applications and improved accuracy and verifiability,” according to the study. Certain types of data, such as when and where, time and place, are missing, which makes it more difficult to predict how much of the gas will be present in the future and at what concentrations.
To fix this, the study recommends the agencies develop a new “gridded” emissions inventory that would be verifiable across the U.S.
The new map would provide “significant value” to scientists to better characterize and test emission estimates and inventories. It also has the potential to inform actions taken by policymakers and businesses on how to curb emissions. Many climate scientists blame the emissions from burning fossil fuels for driving manmade climate change.
The study also calls for the creation of an EPA-NOAA advisory group to help “keep practices consistent with the best scientific understanding” as the science evolves and methodologies to estimate emissions become outdated.
The study recommends that any changes to the greenhouse gas inventory should be told to the public.
