The European Union has reached an agreement on landmark rules to curb methane emissions across major industries, a significant step forward in the EU’s ambitious Green Deal climate strategy.
Initially proposed by the European Commission in December last year as part of EU’s methane strategy and 2030 climate plan, this recently approved deal aims to reduce methane emissions in the energy sector by approximately 30% from 2020 levels by 2030. The agreement establishes a range of new requirements for monitoring, reporting, and mitigation across the natural gas, oil, and coal value chains.
In an unprecedented move, under these new regulations, oil and gas operators will need to conduct detailed methane emissions measurements via direct monitoring techniques at the asset level. Annual reports covering the source-level data will need to be submitted by 2024 for operated assets and by 2026 for non-operated assets. Moreover, regular leak detection and repair surveys have been mandated. From January 2027, new oil, gas, and coal import contracts can only be signed if the same obligations regarding monitoring, reporting, and verification apply equally to exporters and EU producers.
An organization specializing in climate-related research, the Air Task Force, has hailed the agreement. The organization pointed out that these regulations could potentially reduce more than 30% of global methane emissions from the oil and gas sector—accounting for 7% of all man-made emissions worldwide. If these reductions are achieved by 2030, they would signify 20% of the necessary progress toward meeting the Global Methane Pledge.
Flavia Sollazzo, Senior Director of EU Energy Transition at Environmental Defense Fund Europe, praised the deal:
This is a very clear message from the EU and particularly ahead of COP28—that climate responsibility doesn’t stop at its borders. And that as the world’s largest buyer of natural gas, it is prepared to use its influence to help drive global methane emission reduction.
However, some concerns persist. Esther Bollendorf, Senior Gas Policy Expert at CAN Europe, a climate action nonprofit, warned the rules could still allow perilous emission levels:
Applying a methane intensity target only three years after entry into force of this regulation is far too little, too late, as methane emissions from producers outside the EU would risk remaining dangerously high up to 2030. We urge for the European Commission to be ambitious in fleshing out the delegated act, Member States to go for a speedy adoption in order to live up to EU’s commitments under the global methane pledge and making methane mitigation a genuine pathway to fossil gas phaseout by 2035.