According to the White House, President Biden is moving to tighten restrictions on methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas, and to increase funding for developing countries to adapt to the effects of climate change and transition to cleaner technologies.
Mr. Biden announced the measures in a speech before the COP27 United Nations climate conference. According to administration officials, the measures include plans for the Environmental Protection Agency to require oil and gas companies to monitor and repair existing production facilities for methane leaks.
Over its first 20 years in the atmosphere, methane is 80 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat from solar radiation. According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration measurements, it is responsible for about half a degree Celsius of global warming since the preindustrial era, and its levels are rapidly rising.
The proposed rules will affect hundreds of thousands of wells, storage tanks, and natural-gas processing plants in the United States, requiring companies to replace leaky, older equipment and purchase new monitoring tools.
Flaring, a technique used by gas producers to burn off excess methane from oil and natural-gas wells, would be reduced at all well sites, according to EPA Administrator Michael Regan. He stated that owners would be required to monitor abandoned wells for methane emissions and plug any leaks.
“We’ve tightened up to limit flaring as much as possible without outright prohibiting it,” Mr. Regan explained.
The American Petroleum Institute, which represents oil and gas producers in the United States, stated that it was reviewing the proposed rule.
“Federal methane regulation designed to build on industry progress can help accelerate emissions reductions while developing reliable American energy,” said Frank Macchiarola, API’s senior vice president of policy, economics, and regulatory affairs.
The Independent Petroleum Association of America, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group that represents many smaller producers, said it would closely examine the regulations.
“While everyone wants to produce oil and natural gas using sound environmental procedures,” he said in a statement, “there will always be a need to ensure that the regulatory structure is cost effective and technologically feasible.”
The Union of Concerned Scientists’ lead economist, Rachel Cleetus, said in a statement that the EPA had “taken an important step forward by issuing a robust standard for methane emissions from oil-and-gas operations.”
During his brief stopover in Egypt on his way to summits in Cambodia and Indonesia, Mr. Biden is walking a political tightrope. The Ukraine conflict has caused havoc in energy markets, highlighting the world’s continued reliance on fossil fuels.
Control of the United States Senate and House of Representatives remained uncertain as of early Friday morning, with both parties bracing for a result that might not be known for days. If Republicans gain control of either chamber, it will mean more power for a party that is deeply skeptical of Mr. Biden’s climate agenda and unwilling to spend billions of dollars to assist other countries in transitioning to cleaner energy sources.
According to the White House, Mr. Biden will announce an additional $100 million for the United Nations Adaptation Fund, which assists countries in adapting to floods, droughts, and storms that climate scientists say are becoming more frequent and severe as the earth’s atmosphere and oceans warm. The United States has yet to contribute the $50 million pledged to the fund at last year’s climate talks in Glasgow.
The United States also owes $2 billion to the United Nations Green Climate Fund, which funds renewable energy and climate adaptation projects in developing countries. In the fiscal 2023 budget, the administration has requested $1.6 billion for the fund.
According to the White House, Mr. Biden will also pledge $150 million to a US fund for climate adaptation and resilience across Africa; $13.6 million to the World Meteorological Organization to collect additional weather, water, and climate observation across Africa; and $15 million to NOAA in collaboration with local weather-forecasting agencies to support the deployment of early-warning systems in Africa.
The US pledges do not address poorer countries’ demands for money to compensate for damage caused by climate-related weather events—a new category of funding known as “loss and damage.” Belgium and Germany pledged 172 million euros, or $176 million, this week at the summit to support loss-and-damage payments to developing countries. Scotland contributed $5.8 million, while Ireland contributed $10 million.
Following severe floods in Pakistan this summer that caused $30 billion in losses, according to World Bank estimates, killing over 1,700 people and displacing 33 million residents, developing countries have renewed their push to establish a mechanism for loss-and-damage payments. Sen. Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s federal minister for climate change, said she is hoping for more assistance from the United States and other countries.
The concept of loss and damage, according to US negotiators, exposes wealthier nations to spiraling liability. There is also scientific uncertainty about which effects can be attributed to human-caused climate change and which are due to normal seasonal variation. However, at the conference this week, US climate envoy John Kerry stated that he is open to discussing loss and damage.
“We need more,” said Ms. Rehman in an interview. “At COP, you hear a lot of ‘action now.’ Everything else is nonsense.”
Mr. Biden arrived at the climate summit on Friday, after the majority of world leaders had left. He met privately with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi at the conference, which was held in a Red Sea resort town. The United States and Germany were expected to announce a $250 million financing program for the construction of 10 gigatonnes of new wind and solar energy facilities in Egypt while decommissioning 5 gigatonnes of inefficient natural-gas power plants on Friday.
The Biden administration’s efforts to reduce methane emissions follow an agreement reached on the sidelines of the Glasgow summit a year ago, in which China and the United States agreed to work together to reduce methane emissions. Beijing announced a plan to reduce methane emissions this week, but has yet to include the new measures in its climate plans submitted to the United Nations.
Nigeria announced its first-ever regulations, including flaring restrictions, to reduce overall methane emissions by more than 60% below 2020 levels. Canada announced Thursday that it intends to reduce methane emissions from its oil and gas industry by more than 75% by 2030 compared to 2012.
According to a study of 300 wells in four states published in the journal Science in September, flaring emissions are far higher than previous government and industry estimates.
According to the White House, the oil and gas industry wastes 260 billion cubic meters of gas each year due to flaring and methane emissions.
Countries committed to limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, preferably to 1.5 degrees. According to a recent United Nations report, the gap between the emissions cuts pledged by 166 countries, including the United States, and their current emissions puts the world on track to warm by 2.5 degrees Celsius, or 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit, by the end of the century.
Officials at the White House point to Mr. Biden’s support for the Democrats’ climate, health, and tax legislation, which allocates hundreds of billions of dollars to climate and energy programs such as tax credits for purchasing electric vehicles and investments in clean technologies.
According to administration officials, the legislation has helped put the United States on track to meet Mr. Biden’s goal of reducing domestic emissions by 50% below 2005 levels by 2030.