"COP26: 105 countries pledge to cut methane emissions by 30 per cent"

This is part of what we were babbling about in yesterday's "COP26: Radio Davos Is On The Air". There will be more to come, the conference runs through November 12. 

This is important because it goes after not just natural gas/LNG but also food production, mainly meat but also fertilizer manufacturing. As for shipping it looks like a major effort to halt much more switching to LNG propulsion because the discussion docs talk about leakage from fuel tanks and engines, which is already being addressed by the shippers in conversations with the manufacturers but also every leaky pipe all the way back up the supply chain to the wellheads, which shipping companies can't do much about.

As a side note, this science has been known for decades and in fact Gazprom was looking at a $50 billion windfall from emissions credits under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Every leaky pipe was being seen as a profit center.

From NewScientist:

More than a hundred countries including the US, Japan and Canada have pledged a significant cut this decade on emissions of methane, the short-lived but powerful greenhouse gas.

The Global Methane Pledge announced at COP26 in Glasgow today commits signatories to reducing emissions 30 per cent by 2030, compared to 2020 levels. The US government also published a detailed blueprint of how it intends to meet the goal.

While international climate summits usually focus mostly on carbon dioxide (CO2), the dominant driver of the 1.1°C of global warming that has occured since pre-industrial levels, the new initiative puts the spotlight on methane (CH4) leaking from oil and gas wells, pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure. Methane is responsible for about 30 per cent of global warming to date, and atmospheric concentrations of the gas have surged since 2007, sparking concern from scientists.

“Cutting back on methane emissions is one of the most effective things we can do to reduce near-term global warming and keep to 1.5°C,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, referring to the 2015 Paris Agreement’s toughest climate goal.

The voluntary pledge is backed by 15 of the world’s biggest methane emitters including the EU, Indonesia and Iraq. In total, 105 countries have signed up and John Kerry, the US president’s special envoy on climate, said he expects the number to grow.

However, it has some significant omissions. Missing from the pledge are China, India and Russia, with the latter notorious for leaky fossil fuel infrastructure. It also does not include Australia, where major plumes of methane from coal mines have been identified....

....MUCH MORE 

Here is the September US/EU statement:  

Joint US-EU Press Release on the Global Methane Pledge