By Drew Shindell for The Conversation.
Broadcast version by Nadia Ramlagan for West Virginia News Service

The U.S. and European Union are working on a pledge to cut methane emissions by at least 30% this decade, President Joe Biden announced on Sept. 17, 2021, and he urged countries around the world to join in ahead of the U.N. climate summit later this year.

The move is a big deal for efforts to slow climate change - and also for health. While methane isn't as abundant as carbon dioxide, it's a far more potent greenhouse gas at warming the planet and also a source of unhealthy air pollution.

Why is methane a concern, and is this goal enough?

Methane emissions have been going up very quickly, and research shows they need to drop by nearly half by 2030 to meet the Paris climate agreement goal of keeping global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 F) on the lowest-cost path. That means the world has a rapid U-turn to make.

The new pledge, if taken up widely and implemented, would dramatically change the world's methane trajectory. It's an ambitious minimum target, and ideally the 30% will have to be substantially exceeded to increase the chances of methane following a 1.5 C path.

The good news is that the world has a lot to gain by cutting these emissions.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, but it's also a precursor of surface ozone, which is a toxic air pollutant. So, reducing methane improves the quality of the air we breathe at the same time that it reduces climate change, and the results are almost immediate.

Methane is also valuable. If you capture methane from a landfill, you have a source of income right there. Capture it from leaking natural gas pipelines, and it pays for itself, because that's the whole point of these pipelines - they transport methane as natural gas.

With the technology already available today, the world could cut methane emissions from fossil fuels, agriculture and rotting waste by 45% within a decade. That would avoid 0.3 degrees Celsius (0.5 F) of warming, which might not sound like much, but it's one-fifth of the Paris climate agreement budget of 1.5 C.

So, you get climate benefits, you get public health benefits and it's also a financial win for the companies capturing the methane.

It's not like this is rocket science. A large part of the methane being released is from natural gas pipelines and storage, oil and gas pumping and landfills - and those are all problems companies know how to fix. Furthermore, recent satellite and aircraft data suggest that many sources have larger emissions than once thought, especially in the energy sector. This suggests that actively working on methane reductions may bring more benefits than initial estimates and could put countries well over the 30% goal of the pledge.

How does cutting methane improve health?

Methane causes ground-level ozone, which contributes to a lot of respiratory problems, including asthma in children, respiratory infections and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorders. There's pretty robust evidence that it can also exacerbate cardiovascular disease.

Both methane and ozone are also greenhouse gases that cause global warming, which creates more health risks, particularly through heat exposure.

We looked at medical research and modeling, and used that to figure out what's at stake. We found that for every million tons of methane emitted, about 1,430 people die prematurely, there are about 4,000 asthma-related emergencies and 300 million work hours are lost to the health effects. To put that into context, around 370 million tons of methane are released annually due to human activities.

If you reduce methane emissions in 2022, you'll see the ozone response in 2022, whereas you have to wait to see the climate effects until the climate system adjusts over at least a decade.

What's causing methane emissions to rise so quickly?

Global emissions are going up. That's easy to measure by chemical sampling of the air, and satellites can monitor large methane sources. But which sources are most responsible is a tougher question.

Global methane emissions were fairly level about 15 to 20 years ago, and then they started creeping up. Now, especially over the past five years or so, they've been rising at a fast rate.

Some studies point to the rise of hydraulic fracturing, which quickly expanded gas production and roughly parallels the recent methane increase. Others say livestock and the increasing global demand for meat played a big role. Some point to natural sources - particularly wetlands in the tropics responding to climate change.

The most likely scenario is that it's a combination of all three.

The bottom line is that the overall methane emissions have to be lowered to slow climate change. If the increase is coming from fossil fuel or waste or livestock, then countries need to go after the human sources. If it's coming from natural systems that are responding to climate change, they still have to go after those human sources of methane. Cutting methane emissions is the strongest leveragefwe to slow those feedbacks down.

If cutting methane pays for itself, and the technology exists, why isn't more being done?

The oil and gas industry itself is divided on methane. Many of the big companies supported the U.S. methane emissions rules that were set by the Obama administration - and later rolled back by the Trump administration - because they know capturing methane pays for itself. It's not an onerous economic burden on them, and supporting it can improve the image of the industry.

For small operators, however, the upfront costs of equipment and the need to hire labor to inspect the pipelines may be harder.

For example, if a company is going to repair a pipeline, it can close off a section, bring in a compressor, and pump all of the excess gas farther down the line before starting to work on it. Doing that requires getting a compressor and having the trucks to move it and the staff to maintain it. A lot of studies have found that these investments pay for themselves in a few years because of the value of the methane saved. But many small operators find it simpler to just vent the gas into the atmosphere when they want to work on the pipe.

A similar problem exists with landfills and waste. As organic matter like food waste decomposes, it releases methane. Many landfills in developed countries already capture some of that methane gas. But many developing countries don't have managed landfills or even trash pickup, making it impossible to capture the biogas.

Our report lists a few recommendations, in addition to technical solutions, that can be used for landfills everywhere, including better waste sorting so organic material is kept out of landfills and used for compost instead, and reducing food waste overall. That can also reduce hunger if unused foods are gathered and distributed.

Agriculture also has some straightforward solutions. Eating a healthy diet that, for many people, means cutting out excess red meat would go a long way in reducing the amount of livestock being produced for slaughter. These kinds of health and food security programs could boost the total methane reductions well beyond the 30% goal. Encouraging changes in food consumption can be politically dicey, but this is a huge emissions source. We're not going to keep warming under 1.5 C without dealing with it.

Drew Shindell wrote this article for The Conversation.


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Wet weather this spring has improved drought conditions in Minnesota and southern Canada. However, experts remain on alert for increased wildfire activity and other climate changes affecting people's health.

Poor air quality was a frequent topic last year in the upper Midwest, as smoke pushed down from Canadian wildfires. Researchers said climate change is fueling hotter and drier summers, making forests more susceptible to large fires.

Dr. Bruce Snyder, co-founder of Health Professionals for a Healthy Climate, worries about a repeat summer of thick, hazy smoke in the air creating unhealthy conditions.

"When that happens, people have more respiratory disease; people who have chronic lung disease tend to get sicker," Snyder explained. "There's a lot of downstream consequences for people all over the world, but certainly here in Minnesota."

Snyder noted the transition to cleaner energy sources is complex, but acknowledged pollution events place more emphasis on the need for less reliance on fossil fuels, due to their contributions to a warming planet. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency said the state has had 46 air quality alerts since 2015, and 34 of those were because of wildfire smoke.

Snyder emphasized it is not just air pollution from wildfire smoke to worry about. He pointed out there are other ways a person's health can suffer from climate change.

"We've got many more dangerous insects -- ticks, mosquitoes, and so forth," Snyder stressed. "This is having a profound effect on our wildlife. But also, we're seeing a lot more progressively rising rates of Lyme disease, of West Nile virus."

Year-over-year statistics may vary, but state health officials say the median number of Lyme disease cases has risen in the past decade. Snyder added adverse health effects of climate change can be much harder for populations lacking stable housing.


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Conservationists in Maine said reinstated protections of the Endangered Species Act could help wildlife already struggling to adapt to climate change.

Economic impacts will no longer be considered when listing certain species as threatened or endangered but the threat of climate change will be a factor.

Anya Fetcher, federal policy advocate for the Natural Resources Council of Maine, said so-called "blanket rule" protections will also be revived.

"This is basically, while they are considering whether they should become endangered, they're going to continue to protect those species as if they were," Fetcher explained.

The Trump administration removed protections for threatened species along with other key aspects of the law. Fetcher acknowledged the new rules are likely to be challenged by Congress similar to other climate and environmental regulations.

Conservation powers will also be extended to federally recognized tribes, allowing them the same opportunities to protect wildlife, including some of Maine's most iconic species such as the piping plover and Canada lynx, which are losing critical habitat to development and a changing climate.

Fetcher pointed out one-third of Maine's species are vulnerable to climate change, including more than half the state's birds.

"Our wildlife is part of what makes Maine so special," Fetcher asserted. "Protecting critical habitat and the incredible wildlife that we have here is vital to our economy as well."

Fetcher added the Endangered Species Act has been helpful in protecting species such as the bald eagle, once on the brink of extinction but now a common sight in Maine. Nearly 500,000 public comments were considered in the new rule-making process.


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PacifiCorp's updated energy roadmap throws a lifeline to Wyoming's coal industry but critics said the new Integrated Resource Plan is a major setback for community health and the climate.

Rob Joyce, director of the Wyoming Chapter of the Sierra Club, said the plan would add 100 million metric tons of climate pollution by 2042. It also slashes near-term investments in cheaper wind and solar, and makes a huge bet on behalf of ratepayers to install unproven and expensive carbon capture devices on existing coal-fired power plants.

"To be increasing emissions, increasing investment in fossil fuels, and putting hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars towards carbon capture when we're not 100 % sure if that is actually even going to work is really dubious," Joyce argued.

PacifiCorp, the parent company of Rocky Mountain Power, plans to extend the life of the Jim Bridger coal-fired power plant in southwestern Wyoming until 2039. The plan also pushes back the retirements of Utah's Hunter plant by at least 10 years, and the Huntington plant by at least four years. PacifiCorp said it should deliver significant near-term cost savings to ratepayers.

The plan also added more natural gas to PacifiCorp's energy portfolio. Joyce worries Wyoming ratepayers, already tapped by state lawmakers to pay millions for a carbon capture compliance surcharge, will end up on the hook.

"We're going to have to cover the costs of the volatility of new gas resources," Joyce pointed out. "The company is saying between $500 million and $1 billion per unit that they put carbon capture on. Those are all things that they pass on to the ratepayers."

Joyce noted with a looming 2030 deadline to significantly reduce fossil fuel pollution in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change, now is the time to invest big in wind and solar. He added by delaying the expansion of clean energy resources, PacifiCorp is leaving billions of dollars in Inflation Reduction Act incentives on the table.

"Right now we know that solar and wind and even battery storage are cheap and getting cheaper," Joyce emphasized. "Those are investments that the rest of the country is making to save ratepayers money."