What is the scientific understanding of the impact of fossil gas on the climate?
Investment in gas is a threat to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Evidence suggests greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from gas-fired power are closer to coal than previously realised.
Expected GHG emissions savings from using fossil gas instead of coal have been exaggerated. Such claims have been based solely on a plant-by-plant comparison between coal and gas-fired power; they do not include the gas supply chain, which is a significant omission. Fossil Gas is lost at the wellhead and through equipment along the transportation route. While the percentage is a small number, because fossil gas is mostly methane, even small leakages have a significant impact on the climate.
Maintaining EU Climate Leadership
We are in a climate crisis. The pace at which economies decarbonise will determine the world we inhabit by the end of this century.
The EU Taxonomy’s robust approach to electricity generation is under scrutiny. There is pressure to allow a much wider role for unabated gas, which risks compromising the EU’s climate commitments and locking in high levels of GHGs for a generation.
The alternative is to fully back Europe’s science-based 2030 emission reduction targets and enable European industry to focus on the opportunity to lead a rapid global shift to a green economy.
7 Key Points about the EU Taxonomy's 100g emissions threshold
In March 2020 the EU Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance (TEG) published its recommendations for an EU Taxonomy for Sustainable Activities.
A key feature of the recommendations around electricity generation was a “substantial contribution” emissions threshold of 100g CO2e/kWh. This is the limit on the intensity of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced from the generation of electricity, heat and power from hydropower, geothermal energy or gaseous and liquid fuels.
On 20 November 2020 the European Commission released its draft Delegated Act for the EU Taxonomy, which adopted the TEG recommendation for an electricity generation threshold.
This briefing details the science behind that 100g threshold. Read the full briefing here!
1. The European Union has adopted a net zero emissions target for 2050
In November 2020 the European Union also adopted an interim target of 55% emission reduction over 1990 levels by 2030, again in line with recommendations of the IPCC.
2. These targets mean that Europe has a limited carbon budget left between now and 2050.
3. The 100g threshold represents the average value of power generations emissions between 2020 and 2050 to enable the EU to meet the net zero by 2050 goal.
The calculation of the 100g threshold is based on the EU targets for future allowed emissions from the power sector, divided by the expected evolution of electricity demand.This calculation, rounded to the nearest 5g, results in a threshold value of 100 gCO2e/kWh for the power sector.
4. Any one plant can, over its lifetime, emit only so much carbon and be in line with the Union's collective goals.
As we approach 2050, the less of an emissions budget we have left, the lower the total carbon that plant can emit. The TEG recommended this should reduce every five years, towards zero in 2050.
5. A given power generator is considered to be making a substantial contribution to these targets if its emissions are below the 100g average of annual emissions.
For a given investment or activity to be compatible with this trajectory, its average emissions over its physical lifetime, or 40 years (whichever is shorter), must be lower than the threshold.
6. Certain technologies clearly operate below the threshold, for example wind, solar, and ocean/tidal power.
Other technologies such as geothermal, hydropower and bioenergy have a wider range of emissions intensities (emissions/kWh generated) and will therefore need to show that their emissions fall below the 100g CO2e/kWh threshold.
Some technologies utilizing natural gas combustion may be able to meet this threshold IF they are able to fully incorporate carbon capture and storage into the plant, but there is a strong burden of proof for those assets seeking to make this claim. Although the 100 gCO2e/kWh threshold is derived from power sector assumptions, it will apply equally to both electricity and heating/cooling generation.
7. The 100g threshold ensures the EU will meet its Paris agreement commitments.
European average emissions from the power sector are currently around 270g. To reach net zero by 2050, they will have to follow a rapidly declining pathway from current levels.
Any power plant operating below the 100g threshold is consistent with this pathway, and is making a substantial contribution to the EU meeting its Paris commitments.
Any plant operating above 270g increases average EU emissions from current levels and risks harming the Paris Agreement. Energy assets that cannot meet this operating threshold face retirement earlier than their expected operating life, creating a risk of asset stranding.
What is the scientific understanding of the impact of fossil gas on climate:
1. Methane matters because its impact on global warming is 82.5 times greater than CO2.1
Methane levels have been increasing steadily since 1985, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).2 This is a cause for concern because methane is exceptionally good at absorbing heat. It warms the planet much more quickly than CO2. If the impact of emitting the two gases is compared over a 20 year period, methane has 82.5 times the impact of CO2.3
2. If gas leaks more than 3% of its methane content, it is worse for the climate than coal.4
Methane can be lost from production wells, pneumatic devices, and valves along transportation routes. In urban areas, gas distribution networks can also be a source of methane leaks. When well-to-plant methane emissions are included in comparisons of gas- and coal-fired power, the benefits of gas against coal are typically only marginal. BUT if methane leaks total more than 3% of gas’s content, generating power with gas is worse for the climate than coal.
3. Methane emissions attributable to oil and gas production are 70% higher than official figures.6
At its most fundamental level, the extraction and use of fossil fuels is a larger methane emitter than had been understood. In 2020, the journal Nature published a ground-breaking study of the carbon signatures of methane in ice cores.7 These signatures allowed for identification of various methane sources. (Methane produced by the extraction and use of fossil fuels has a different radiocarbon signature to methane produced from other natural geological sources such as seeps and mud volcanoes.)
This research found that emissions from fossil fuel production are 25% to 40% higher than previously understood.
The study’s lead author, Benjamin Hmiel, explained, “We’ve identified a gigantic discrepancy that shows the industry needs to, at the very least, improve their monitoring. If these emissions are truly coming from oil, gas extraction, production use, the industry isn’t even reporting or seeing that right now.” 8
4. The EU imports most of its gas, increasingly in the form of highly inefficient LNG, and always from sources with high methane footprints.
Nearly 40% is sourced by pipe from Russia9 - the country with the highest contribution to global methane emissions from the oil and natural gas sector.
Europe imports a further 36% as liquefied natural gas10 (LNG) - a product that uses as much as a further 25% to fuel the process of liquefaction and transportation.11 This extra amount means that total power produced from LNG emits more GHG than power from coal.
Ireland’s Parliament has heard evidence12 that the GHG footprint of LNG imported from the US to Ireland would be 44% higher than coal’s.
Footnotes:
1. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/
2. https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends_ch4/
3. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/
4. https://webstore.iea.org/download/direct/1055?fileName=World_Energy_Outl...
5. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/nov/13/world-has-no-capacity-t...
6. https://www.iea.org/news/methane-emissions-from-the-energy-sector-are-70...
7. Ibid
8. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/19/climate/methane-flaring-oil-emissions...
9. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/pdfscache/46126.pdf
10. Ibid
11. https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC47887/eur%...
12. https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/committee/dail/32/joint_committ...
13. https://www.eig.org/en/events/annual-press-conference-2021