Today, the Partnership to Address Global Emissions (PAGE) issued the following statement in response to the Biden Administration’s final rule regulating methane emissions, announced December 2, 2023, titled “Standards of Performance for New, Reconstructed, and Modified Sources and Emissions Guidelines for Existing Sources: Oil and Natural Gas Sector Climate Review”:
STATEMENT
Establishing verifiable methane standards is important to ensuring natural gas can continue to play a leading role in lowering power sector and industrial emissions. We recognize the Biden Administration’s leadership on the issue and share their goal of addressing methane. PAGE members have already taken significant steps to reduce methane emissions to almost negligible levels, helping establish U.S. natural gas as among the cleanest in the world.
Global energy instability has made clear the world lacks sufficient access to affordable, reliable, secure, and cleaner sources of energy, exacerbating the climate crisis as countries increasingly turn to coal. The U.S. has led the way in reducing CO2 emissions over the last 15 years, with 65% of all power generation emission reductions driven by coal-to-gas-switching. Containing the world’s largest gas reserves, the U.S. has a responsibility to provide this decarbonization solution to our allies around the world. Global power sector emissions would be reduced by 30% if the world’s top 5% worst emitting coal-powered plants switched to natural gas. U.S. LNG, combined with carbon capture, will enable countries to produce reliable, baseload electricity consistent with their zero-carbon emissions commitments.
We look forward to working with world leaders at COP28, the Administration, and Congress as they collaborate on methane standards to help address this critical challenge of reducing global methane emissions. We are committed to innovative and effective methods to lower methane emissions as a part of our collective effort to tackle climate change.
About PAGE
PAGE is a coalition of responsible energy companies, allied NGOs, labor unions and leading climate advocates dedicated to reducing global emissions by promoting U.S. policies that protect the climate, strengthen the economy, lower energy costs and bolster energy security through the production and export of cleaner natural gas. PAGE members have done the following:
- Enbridge set a GHG emission reduction target in 2020, making it the first midstream company in Canada—and North America’s largest energy infrastructure company—to commit to operating on a net-zero basis by 2050. Enbridge also committed to reducing the intensity of GHG emissions from its operations by 35% by 2030. Since 2018, Enbridge has achieved a 23% reduction in methane emissions from operations and in 2022, the gas transmission team mitigated or avoided over 65% of gas volumes from pipeline blowdowns – reducing CO2e emissions equivalent to 35,000 homes’ annual energy use. In 2021, Enbridge’s methane intensity was 0.028% (based on Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration throughput).
- EQT has set aggressive ESG targets, pledging to achieve net zero Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions by or before 2025. EQT anticipates that it will be the first energy company in the world of meaningful scale to achieve net zero GHG emissions on a Scope 1 and Scope 2 basis. Awarded a “Gold Standard” rating by the United Nations’ Oil & Gas Methane Partnership (OGMP) 2.0 in recognition of ambitious methane reduction efforts. Since 2019, EQT has reduced its methane intensity by approximately 70%.
- TC Energy is a signatory to the Methane Guiding Principles and striving to continually reduce methane emissions. In 2021, the company set GHG emissions reductions targets with two main goals: to reduce the GHG emissions intensity of operations by 30% by 2030; and achieve net zero emissions from operations by 2050.
- Williams has a 2030 climate target of 56% absolute reduction from 2005 levels in company-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, putting the company on a positive trajectory to be net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Williams is also committed to achieving the most stringent methane performance standards as prescribed by the Oil & Gas Methane Partnership 2.0 (OGMP 2.0), the United Nations Environment Programme’s methane reporting and mitigation framework.