Biden, other leaders vow methane cuts
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden tried on Friday to hammer out the world’s next steps against rapidly worsening climate change with a small group of other global leaders and announced a new U.S.European pledge to cut climatewrecking methane leaks.
Ever-grimmer findings from scientists this year that the world is nearing the point where the level of climate damage from burning oil, gas and coal becomes catastrophic and irreversible “represent a code red for humanity,” Biden said at the session’s outset.
“We have to act and we have to act now,” Biden said, speaking on a specially erected White House set that showed virtual arrays of solar panels in the background and a wall of other global leaders listening on screens.
Biden, in the public opening of the otherwise private talks, hailed a new U.S. agreement with the European Union aiming at cutting the two entities’ emissions of methane 30 percent by the end of this decade. Methane, the main component of natural gas, is one of the most potent agents of climate damage, gushing up by the ton from countless uncapped oil and gas rigs, leaky natural gas pipelines and other oil and gas facilities.
The White House billed Friday’s meeting as a chance for some of the world leaders to strategize how to achieve big, fast cuts in climatewrecking petroleum and coal emissions.
The list provided of Friday’s attendees included only a dozen leaders: those of Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, the European Commission, the European Council, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United Nations.
China, India and Russia, with the United States, are the nations that emit the most climate-damaging gases from the production and burning of oil, natural gas and coal.
Fred Krupp, president of the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, said cutting methane pollution is the single fastest, most effective strategy to slow the rate of warming. A 30 percent reduction in methane pollution should be only “the entry point for this critical conversation. Many countries can and should aim even higher,” he said.
While methane is about 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, it stays in the air only about a decade, which means cutting methane emissions achieves quicker climate action.
The U.S.-EU pledge comes as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is set to propose stricter rules against methane emissions for the oil and gas sector, as laid out in one of Biden’s first executive orders. Friday’s session will be followed by another closed-door session of 35 to 40 world leaders, to be hosted Monday morning by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Friday, Guterres told those at Biden’s meeting about a new report that shows the world is on a “catastrophic pathway” toward a hotter future unless governments make more ambitious pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions. “We need a 45 percent cut in emissions by 2030 to reach carbon neutrality by mid-century,” he said.
The U.N. report, reviewing all the national commitments submitted by signatories of the Paris climate accord until July 30, found that they would result in emissions rising nearly 16 percent by 2030, compared with 2010 levels.