Mon, Jan 28, 2013 -
Over a dozen Ministers from countries around
the world released a statement today calling
for accelerated action to substantially
reduce venting, leakage, and flaring of
natural gas from oil and gas operations
worldwide. Specifically, the Climate and
Clean Air Coalition intends to work with
leading oil and gas companies to achieve
substantial global methane and black carbon
emission reductions.
It is estimated that
over 8 percent of total worldwide natural
gas production is lost annually to venting,
leakage, and flaring. In addition to U.S.
$27 to $63 billion in energy and economic
losses, these activities result in nearly
two gigatons of CO2 equivalent of greenhouse
gas emissions per year, over 80 percent
of which are methane emissions making oil
and gas operations the second-largest source
of global anthropogenic methane emissions
behind agriculture. Flaring releases substantial
amounts of black carbon, which is particularly
harmful to human health and areas like the
Arctic.
Further Resources
Ministerial StatementClimate and Clean Air
CoalitionThe Climate and Clean Air Coalition
aims to help companies accelerate and expand
voluntary emission reductions where there
are cost-effective opportunities to do so,
and to showcase progress by companies that
are already taking significant action. This
effort will build upon and scale-up the
achievements of the Natural Gas STAR International
Program, the Global Methane Initiative,
and the Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership.
The Coalition will work
with leading oil and gas companies to collaboratively
design an initiative that will quickly and
meaningfully achieve substantial climate,
air quality, health, environmental, operational,
and financial benefits. Initial CCAC engagement
with interested oil and gas companies is
commencing and will accelerate over the
coming months. Ministers from additional
CCAC countries are also expected to join
the effort.
The Coalition (www.unep.org/CCAC),
which was launched by six countries and
the UN Environment Programme in February
2012, now consists of 28 state partners
and other key institutions like the World
Bank, and is already acting on several fronts
to reduce short-lived climate pollutants
such as methane, black carbon, and many
hydroflourocarbons (HFCs).
Quotes on the CCAC from
Companies, Associations, and Investors
"Our 10 years of experience through
the World Bank Global Gas Flaring Reduction
initiative has shown that cooperation between
industry and authorities can make a difference.
Statoil is also working with the Global
Methane Initiative, finding ways to address
methane emission reduction. Jointly with
our industry peers, we are looking forward
to exploring the role oil and gas companies
could play vis a vis CCAC."
Hege Norheim, Head of
Corporate Sustainability, Statoil
"IPIECA members recognise the challenges
posed by short-lived climate forcers and
the need for their effective and efficient
management across society globally, and
acknowledge the formation of the Climate
and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC). We look
forward to engaging with the CCAC as its
structure develops, emissions of SLCF's
are better quantified, and the roles of
the various partners are defined."
IPIECA, the global oil
and gas industry association for environmental
and social issues, < http://www.ipieca.org/news/20130122/ipieca-releases-statement-formation-climate-and-clean-air-coalition
>
"Methane venting
and leakage from oil and gas production
results in substantial economic and environmental
costs. Investors are concerned with these
costs and have been working with companies
to ensure methane leakage is measured and
effectively tackled. Ministerial support
for the Climate and Clean Air Coalition
is welcome one and we hope will accelerate
global efforts to achieve voluntary reductions
by companies. Governments also have a very
important role to play by ensuring regulation
is in place for reducing methane emissions.
Alongside governments and industry, we look
forward to making further progress on this
issue in the coming months."
Stephanie Pfeifer, executive
director of the Institutional Investors
Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) which represents
77 European investors with $10 trillion
of assets under management
"Methane emissions
from oil and gas operations waste natural
gas and contribute to climate change, as
methane is a potent greenhouse gas. Investors
are concerned about the risk posed by these
emissions and welcome the initiative by
the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to promote
voluntary reductions in these emissions,
which can be reduced or eliminated through
application of current best practices."
Chris Davis, Director
of Investor Programs at Ceres and the Investor
Network on Climate Risk (INCR), representing
100 US investors with $11 trillion of assets
under management
Background on the Climate
and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC)
The Climate and Clean
Air Coalition (www.unep.org/CCAC) is a voluntary,
collaborative global partnership uniting
governments, intergovernmental organizations,
the private sector, and civil society to
quickly reduce short-lived climate pollutants
such as methane, black carbon, and many
hydroflourocarbons (HFCs). The Coalition
is focusing high-level attention to catalyze
major reductions that can be undertaken
now using existing technologies.
Aggressive action on
these pollutants could head off 0.5 degrees
Celsius of warming by 2050, prevent over
two million premature deaths each year,
and avoid over 30 million tons of annual
crop losses by 2030. The Coalition seeks
to build upon and scale-up existing efforts
focused on short-lived climate pollutants
such as the Global Methane Initiative, Arctic
Council, and Montreal Protocol and is complementary
to efforts reducing carbon dioxide.
Since its launch in
February 2012, the Coalition has grown from
7 partners to more than 50, currently consisting
of Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Chile,
Colombia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ethiopia,
Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Israel,
Italy, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, Netherlands,
Nigeria, Norway, Republic of Korea, Republic
of Maldives, Sweden, Switzerland, United
Kingdom, and United States, as well as other
key parties like the European Commission,
the UN Environmental Programme, the World
Bank, and the Environmental Defense Fund.
The Coalition has established a Science
Advisory Panel composed of world-renowned
scientists, including Nobel Laureate Mario
Molina and IPCC co-chair Youba Sokona to
ensure the Coalition's work is guided by
the best and latest science.
The Coalition is currently
implementing seven international initiatives:
Reducing methane from
the municipal solid waste sector, including
landfills;
Reducing black carbon from diesel vehicles
and engines;
Reducing SLCPs and other greenhouse gases
from brick production;
HFC alternative technology
and standards promotion;
Financing promotion;
National action plans;
and
Accelerating cost-effective
reductions of short-lived climate pollutants
from global oil and natural gas operations.
+ More
Cropland Expansion Increases
Biodiversity Loss, Says New Report
Support for Sustainable
Agriculture and Better Land Use Planning
Can Avoid Future Losses, While Meeting Food
Demand
Nairobi, 16 January 2013 - An increase in
the amount of land being used for crops
is one of the main reasons for the continuing
loss of biodiversity and threatens to undermine
attempts to meet international environmental
goals, according to a new report involving
scientists from the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP).
Researchers from UNEP's
World Conservation Monitoring Centre and
the Cambridge Conservation Initiative analyzed
data on crop distribution and expansion,
assessed changes in area of main crops,
and mapped overlaps between conservation
priorities and cultivation potential.
They found that cropland
in tropical countries expanded by around
48,000 km² per year from 1999-2008.
Rice was the single crop grown over the
largest area, especially in tropical forest
habitats.
Countries which added
the greatest area of new cropland were Nigeria,
Indonesia, Ethiopia, Sudan and Brazil. Soybeans
and maize are the crops which expanded most
in absolute area. Other crops with large
increases included rice, sorghum, oil palm,
beans, sugar cane, cow peas, wheat and cassava.
The report highlights
the urgent need for more effective sustainability
standards and policies to address production
and consumption of tropical commodities,
including robust land-use planning, the
establishment of new protected areas, projects
to support forests (such as Reducing Emissions
from Deforestation and Forest Degradation,
or REDD+) in places agriculture has not
yet reached, and the reduction or elimination
of incentives for land-demanding bio-energy
feed stocks.
The report has been
published in the run-up to the first plenary
meeting of the newly-created Intergovernmental
Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
(IPBES) in Bonn, Germany from 21 to 26 January
2013.
IPBES, which was established
in April 2012, creates a mechanism recognized
by both scientific and policy communities
to synthesize, review, assess and critically
evaluate relevant information and knowledge
generated worldwide.
The report also warns
that areas of high biodiversity value may
also be vulnerable to similar land conversion
patterns in the future. These include priority
conservation areas such as Frontier Forests
and High Biodiversity Wilderness Areas,
which have previously been identified as
having 'low vulnerability'.
There are also many
other smaller areas which are important
for biodiversity and which have high cultivation
potential, such as on the fringes of the
Amazon basin, in the Paraguayan Chaco, and
in the savanna woodlands of the Sahel and
East Africa.
UNEP will launch later
this month a campaign against food waste,
which also aims to lessen the pressure on
land as yet unused for agriculture.
