Australia wakes up to the methane fire alarm, but its response is too slow

Today marks a historic day for how we measure the methane emissions spewing out of our biggest coal and gas  mines. 

After 466 days of consultations, submissions and endless hours of expert review, the federal Department of Climate Change has well and truly ‘read the room’ and agreed with the Climate Change Authority’s assessment that Australia needs to take a serious look at how fossil fuel companies report their methane.

They found that as a country, we have “failed to keep pace with global developments and investment in methane measurement capability”. 

As a result, the Government has just agreed to a host of reforms that have the potential to transform the way we measure and report one of the main drivers of global warming. In effect, we are planning a shift from abacuses to AI, from emission factors to satellite modelling inversions in a matter of years. 

The transformation could be profound, especially as our power sector decarbonizes and coal mines risk becoming the leading sources of emissions in QLD and NSW

Today’s announcement has a number of highlights, none greater than the appointment of Chief Scientist Cathy Foley AO, to lead an expert panel to assess opportunities to improve our overall approach to emissions measurement. 

The panel will look at how to integrate satellites, planes, drones and stationary lasers into our existing bottom-up measurement approach. It’s a critical shift that is long overdue.

The Canadian government is already years ahead of us. They integrated atmospheric measurements of methane emissions across oil and gas facilities in their latest emissions update, and significantly revised their estimated methane emissions in the process. In one year alone, they identified an additional 17 million tonnes of CO2-e just from their oil and gas industry.

The US has also introduced requirements for empirical methane measurement in its federal methane regulations, and has developed fines for emissions from oil and gas sites that satellites can see are leaking methane. 

This is exactly what the Climate Change Authority was referring to last year when it highlighted that the federal government’s approach has simply “failed to keep pace” with our global partners. 

While countries such as Canada, China, the US and even Kazakhstan have been developing methane action plans that integrate satellites as a core part of their efforts, we have brushed off independent satellite assessments which highlight that our emissions reporting approach could be missing millions of tonnes of methane. 

As one of the world’s biggest coal and gas exporters, with access to world-leading science and technology, it’s critical that we catch up as fast as we can.

That’s also why the announced funding for a world-leading controlled release methane study could prove critical. While we know how valuable satellites will be, we genuinely do need case study experience to develop a standard measurement methodology, especially at open cut coal mines. 

The results will also prove crucial to state regulators, who are asking questions about why methane estimates in NSW and QLD are so out-of-sync with satellite estimates. 

After Australia’s ‘lost decade’, today’s announcement is a sign that the era of unaccountable methane reporting is coming to an end.  

However, the confident tone of today’s announcement paired with the lack of clear timeframes and funding is concerning. 

In their year-long review, the Climate Change Authority framed many of their recommendations “as a matter of urgency”. In fact, the call to establish a panel of experts was intended to be rolled out in the first quarter of 2024. In today’s announcement, we’re well behind schedule, and there is no clarity on the panel’s broader membership, the date of the first meeting, or when they will be reporting back. 

But even more critically, the Climate Change Authority recommended that the Department of Climate Change should urgently conduct a review of company-led methane estimates, and be adequately resourced to do so.  

In Ember’s most recent assessment, we found that shifting to this approach has led to the unverified erasure of millions of tonnes of emissions so far.

While the government has agreed to review this approach, it is yet to determine the scope and timing of such a review. It has already planned to roll out this approach across our biggest open cut coal mines in the next two years, many of which may receive Safeguard credits in the interim. 

This is a little like hearing the office fire alarm ring, and hoping it’s just another drill. 

Today’s announcement outlines a critical shift away from estimates and towards getting Australia’s methane measurement right.

But the risk is that after over a year of collecting hundreds of expert inputs into how to improve Australia’s methane measurement approach, we may simply be shifting from one expert panel to the next – this time without clear funding or a legislative timeline to report back. 

When the fire alarm goes off, we need to do more than talk about taking a step in the right direction. We need to get moving – as a matter of urgency. 

Chris Wright  is a strategic Climate Advisor – Coal Mine Methane with Ember Climate.