Flare-up

Will COP28 tackle a quick win of climate change? (8 minute read)

I care about climate change, so I feel as if I should care about COP28. This is the big United Nations climate change conference, where, every year, governments from around the world discuss what to do about climate change. This year, more than 70,000 people are expected to attend. With numbers like that, I have to hope they achieve something – preferably something which takes the planet in the right direction. Given the recent revelations that host nation the United Arab Emirates planned to use the conference to negotiate oil deals, a positive outcome is far from guaranteed.

I can still remember the outcome of COP26, two years ago, when the conference almost agreed to phase out coal-fired power stations at some point in the distant future. At the last minute, the wording was changed to ‘phase-down’. The COP26 president, British Tory MP Alok Sharma, was nearly reduced to tears over it.

I wonder what it would take to reduce the COP28 president, Sultan Al-Jaber, who is also CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, to tears. At COP26, he was defending the ‘phase-down’ wording, saying ‘we cannot just flip a switch’ – as if that was the suggestion. I wonder how he would react if governments signed up to some meaningful commitments.

I’m not going to write any more about COP28. I can only take so much before I find myself swamped in cynicism and negativity. But before I leave the topic, I’d like to direct you to two other pieces on the subject. Activist Emily Atkin, who writes Heated, has written about why COP28 does matter, and has provided some useful links if you want to know more. And Green Humour sums it all up with a biting cartoon.

COP28 sucks. Pay attention anyway. - by Emily Atkin (heated.world)

Welcome to the COP 28 Dubai - Green Humour (substack.com)

Rather than look at COP28 itself, I’m going to take a closer look at one of the issues on the agenda – gas flaring. It’s not a topic I have heard discussed often, and until a couple of days ago I didn’t really understand what it was. But I picked up a piece of news which made me want to look further. I’ll get to that in a moment, first – what is it?

Not flaring, just a stunning sunrise over Wellington Harbour (image credit: Melanie Newfield)

Coal, oil and natural gas (that is, methane) are three very different types of fuel – solid, liquid and gas – and we use them in very different ways. But the distinction is not as clean as it first appears. When they are in the ground, both coal and oil contain considerable amounts of methane. Getting them out of the ground risks releasing that methane in dangerous and explosive ways.

I’ve written about methane before, but it’s worth a quick review. Methane is a greenhouse gas many times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat. Methane is short-lived, though. It only lasts about 12 years before it breaks down into water and carbon dioxide. This means that when methane from fossil fuel sources gets into the atmosphere, it’s a double hit for the climate. Methane is also explosive if it reaches a concentration between 5 and 15% in the air, which means that managing it for safety usually trumps managing it to reduce climate change.

The amount of methane in coal and oil varies, and it is managed in a number of different ways. For coal, deeper seams usually have more methane, making underground mines higher emitters per unit of coal produced. However, surface (or open-cast) mines can also emit considerable quantities of methane.

If a coal mine is on the surface, the methane entering the atmosphere is quickly diluted and dissipated – good for safety, bad for the climate. In an underground mine, the methane accumulates in the mine. To prevent disastrous explosions, the methane is vented out of the mine, or at least it should be. Inadequate ventilation, both in design and construction, was one of the main causes of the Pike River Mine explosion in 2010, which killed 29 men.

In theory, it’s possible to manage the methane in an underground coal mine in a way which is both safe for the miners and better for the environment. The best option is to recover the methane and use it as natural gas. It still contributes to climate change, but it’s considerably better than simply releasing the methane. The alternative is burning the methane, but not using it for anything, a process known as ‘flaring’. It’s still better than releasing methane into the atmosphere, even though intuitively it doesn’t seem so.

How much of the methane released when coal is mined ends up in the atmosphere? The answer is different in different countries. In New Zealand, most of our coal mines are surface mines, lower in methane, but releasing it directly into the atmosphere. As of 2016, none of our four underground mines collected or flared their methane. In comparison, around 40% of Australia’s underground mines had programmes to burn the emitted methane in 2016. In China, the figures aren’t reported in the same way, but in 2020 it was reported to be capturing and burning around 35% of the methane emitted by its coal mines. It could potentially capture much more, as most of its mines are underground. This contrasts with India, which mostly has surface mines and captures very little of its methane.

Dealing with methane during oil drilling is a different challenge. As oil is pumped from deep underground, it carries methane with it. Most of the time, this methane it is simply vented or burned off. Burning it, or flaring, is better than venting, even though it still results in some release of methane. However, most of the methane which is flared could have been collected and used, and the only reason it isn’t is because it’s cheaper for the oil companies to simply waste it. Even worse, some oil wells are designed to vent methane, without burning, when pressure builds up, while others leak methane because they are poorly maintained.

Although it gets rid of most of the methane, there are other reasons why routine gas flaring is a problem. Research from NASA found that Northern Hemisphere oil wells were putting a significant amount of soot into the Arctic environment. Soot contributes to climate change in the Arctic, because it darkens the snow – and a dark surface absorbs heat more than a light surface.

Flaring also affects the health of those near oil wells – and even those some distance away. It releases a range of toxic chemicals such as carbon monoxide, benzene, naphthalene, as well as the soot I mentioned earlier. These chemicals contribute to a range of health impacts, in particular breathing problems. A recent study found that pollutants from flaring were spreading hundreds of miles from oil wells in the Middle East – this was the news which made me want to take a closer look at flaring. Among the countries most affected is the United Arab Emirates, host to COP28, which has the highest rate of asthma in the Middle East and is among the countries with the worst asthma rates in the world.

In 2015, the World Bank launched a programme to eliminate routine gas flaring from oil fields by 2030. Although its website proudly states that flaring has fallen to its lowest level since 2010, it also noted that in 2022, enough methane was flared to power the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa. The International Energy Agency presents the same numbers with less enthusiasm, noting that the amount flared in 2022 was about the same as in 2010 and giving the initiative a red dot indicating that it’s not on track to meet its targets.

The United Arab Emirates is one country which hasn’t signed up to the World Bank initiative. However, one of their state-owned companies, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, committed to eliminating routine flaring in the early 2000s, well ahead of the World Bank initiative. They claim to be proud of their status of a leader in ‘decarbonisation’.

If that company name sounds familiar, you’re right. It’s the same company run by COP28 president Sultan Al-Jaber.

Maybe this is some good news? Perhaps the COP28 president has previously shown some leadership on climate change.

Not so fast. A recent report from The Guardian showed high levels of flaring from the company’s oil fields, as well as other fields in the United Arab Emirates. While a company spokesperson has denied routine flaring, experts said satellite imagery suggested the flaring was not occasional flaring for safety reasons, but almost constant.

Routine gas flaring and methane emissions from underground coal mines and oil drilling are problems which can be fixed with current technology. I’ve searched online for reasons that routine flaring has barely reduced, despite the World Bank initiative. The only barrier I can find is cost. It’s cheaper for oil companies to vent or flare than to collect and use the gas, so they continue to do it.

Oil industry methane emissions and gas flaring are on the agenda at COP28, with the USA committing to action. There is a chance that more countries, and companies, might commit to eliminating routine flaring by 2030. I hope they do. But they still have to follow through, and unless companies are put under financial pressure I hold little hope that they will do so.

Image credit: Melanie Newfield