Avoided Warming from Oil and Gas Methane Mitigation

Methane is responsible for around a quarter of today’s warming, and the amount of methane we currently emit from human activities will yield more warming over the next 10 years than current emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels. The oil and gas industry is projected to become the number one anthropogenic source of methane emissions within the next couple of decades in the absence of major efforts to decarbonize society. Fortunately, the technology exists to cut methane emissions from oil and gas in half at just a penny per cubic foot, and the largest oil and gas companies have recently made impressive commitments to severely limit emissions from upstream operations. Here we present the powerful climate benefits of employing available technologies and achieving commitments to reduce methane from the oil and gas industry. We find that nearly a third of a degree Centigrade (over a half a degree Fahrenheit) of warming can be avoided by end of century from these oil and gas measures, with a 15% decrease in the rate of warming over the next couple of decades. We also compare these measures and benefits to economically and technically feasible mitigation measures for all major methane-emitting sectors, and find that there is no larger cost-effective and readily available opportunity than that from oil and gas.