A Nord Stream disaster every day

A half-mile wide maelstrom is swirling in the Baltic Sea as an estimated 300,000 metric tons of gas violently erupts from the sabotaged Nord Stream pipelines. Most of this gas is likely methane, a gas normally invisible to the eye that is over 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat over 20 years. The swirling froth recalls Hurricane Ian, another catastrophe that’s just devastated Florida.

These are both climate catastrophes: Ian’s rapid intensification into near Category 5 hurricane force before landfall bears the fingerprints of global warming. Even before Ian, extreme weather in the first half of 2022 had already caused a record $65 billion in losses, more than double the average of the last 20 years for the same period. Ian will likely double this again. 

The methane gushing out of the damaged Nord Stream pipelines is another type of climate catastrophe. It represents the amount of methane — emitted every single day — on average from oil, gas and coal energy systems, totaling about 110 million metric tons annually. Most of this wasted methane could be avoided or captured at low net cost and often at a net savings.

“Will this calamity have a climate impact? The answer is yes. For me to create equivalent climate damage, I’d have to drive my car 50 billion kilometers this year,” says David Risk, professor GeoVerra Chair in Emissions Research, at St Francis Xavier University. “However, our best field measurements and estimates tell us that, on an annual basis, the global oil and gas supply chain emits more methane than 275 Nord Stream disasters.”

The catastrophe at the Nord Stream pipelines affords us a rare opportunity to literally see the scale of methane waste that is happening every day, that is otherwise invisible to us. Stopping this methane waste is one of the key themes last week at the Global Methane, Climate and Clean Air Forum in Washington, D.C. Hosted jointly by the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) and the Global Methane Initiative, this event brought together over 1,000 participants from government, industry, academia and civil society to share the tools, technologies and best practices for reining in methane and other super climate pollutants that are causing half of today’s warming.

Over the last decade methane emissions have reached five-year growth rates not seen since measurements began in 1983. The increase is driven overwhelming by human activities in three sectors: fossil fuels, agriculture and waste. Without concerted action global methane emissions are expected to increase by approximately 13 percent over 2020 levels by 2030, according to the forthcoming Global Methane Assessment 2030 Baseline Report.

We need to run — and win — three simultaneous races to keep the 1.5 degrees Celsius guardrail of the Paris Agreement within reach, and we have to win them all to keep this planet livable. We must win the sprint to cut methane and other super climate pollutants this decade, to slow warming enough to stay in the marathon to phase out fossil fuels and reach net-zero carbon dioxide by 2050. But the greenhouse gas blanket is already too thick, which is why we also need to win an ultra-marathon to learn how to safely and effectively remove excess greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

Fortunately, the 2021 UN Environment Programme and CCAC Global Methane Assessment identified existing and cost-effective technical measures that can cut global methane emissions by as much as 45 percent by 2030. The largest of these reductions come from fossil fuels, with additional options available within agriculture and waste. Key measures within fossil fuels include preventing gas leakage during transmission and distribution, recovering and using gas at the production stage and by pre-mine degasification and recovery of methane during coal mining. As much as 80 percent of the oil and gas measures have a low or even negative mitigation costs. We all know that when you find yourself in a hole the first thing to do is to stop digging, and so in addition to minimizing leaks in existing infrastructure we need to stop further expansion. Indeed, numerous studies show that additional investments in new oil and gas development are inconsistent with the rapidly shrinking pathway to achieve the 1.5 degrees Celsius target.

Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry said at the recent form, “we need everyone — governments, industry, banks — to join us in taking rapid action to develop strong policies and implement real projects to capture this potential.” Already, Colombia, Nigeria and others are taking strong steps to regulate methane in the oil and gas sector. And the U.S. is working closely with Mexico, Egypt and others to drive progress in this area, Kerry said. The U.S. is also putting some serious funding into this through the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act.

Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas behind carbon dioxide and is responsible for about 45 percent of net warming to date. Methane also comes with a kicker in the form of the tropospheric ozone it creates — a powerful greenhouse gas and air pollutant that kills up to 1 million people per year and reduces production of staple crops by up to 15 percent in some regions. Methane also only lasts in the atmosphere for approximately 10 years, and this means that rapidly cutting methane can quickly achieve multiple benefits for climate, health, agriculture and sustainable development.

The ozone hole was an iconic image that helped catalyze global action to phase out ozone-depleting substances through the Montreal Protocol. Can the image of the methane maelstrom in the Baltic Sea do the same?

If we act immediately and aggressively to cut methane, we can still stabilize warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the threshold to avoid the worst impact of climate change. Not only that, but since methane is the strongest leverage, we have to reduce warming over the next few decades we can bring climate benefits that are sorely needed faster than by any other actions. 

Martina Otto is the head of Secretariat, UNEP-convened Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC). The views expressed are her own.

Drew Shindell, Ph.D., is a CCAC special adviser on methane action and chair of the CCAC Scientific Advisory Panel. He is also a professor at Duke University.

Gabrielle Dreyfus, Ph.D., is a member of the CCAC Scientific Advisory Panel. She is also chief scientist at the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD) and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.