By Toby McIntosh
The UN Environment Programme has released data on climate-damaging methane emissions, but further promised transparency still awaits.
In particular, UNEP has not yet disclosed information about its interactions with national governments and the parties responsible for the emissions.
Such disclosures will be coming, UNEP said in Dec. 19 responses to EYE questions, but “in the future versions of the platform.” No time frame was provided for when this will occur.
Initial Data Released on 1,626 Emissions
What has been issued is the fruit of research collected in the past year about major emissions using satellite images from several sources.
The disclosures are part of an effort to reduce methane emissions. The Methane Alert and Response System (MARS) was announced in 2022 and has been in “trial phase” during most of 2023. MARS is run by the International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO) at UNEP.
A report issued Dec. 1 said, “Following the trial phase, within 45 to 75 days post detection, IMEO will publicly disclose all satellite-detected emission events.” This reprised past pledges.
Early in the week of Dec. 4, UNEP posted a map and data showing 1,626 methane emissions, mainly from sites related to oil and gas production, but also some from coal mines and landfills. Most of the detected methane plumes are from 2023, but some date back into 2021.
The data shows the country in which the emission occurred and gives the geographic coordinates of the source. Also provided among 17 columns is the size of the emissions in tons per hour.
Weekly Data Updates Planned
The December data release seems to indicate that the MARS trial phase is concluded and that further data will be forthcoming.
UNEP told EYE that new data will be added to the site weekly.
“We are endeavoring to update weekly with all plumes that meet the age criteria (45-75 days post detection),” UNEP said Dec. 19.
The final entry in the first batch of data concerned an emission in Algeria on Nov. 27.
“Not a Shaming Tool”
However, promised disclosure about efforts to reduce the emission seems to be in the future.
The UNEP strategy is to engage “in a constructive and productive way” with governments and those responsible for the emissions. Public disclosure about the emissions and the engagement efforts was to come 45-75 days after detection.
UNEP had notified governments and companies about 127 large methane emissions detected in the oil and gas sector during 2023, according to the Dec. 1 report. (See EYE article.) The data table indicates whether governments were contacted. Entries in the “notified” column show either “True” or “False.”
UNEP has said it provide information about its interactions with governments and responsible parties. However, such transparency still seems to be in the future.
UNEP’s response to EYE provides some additional detail on potential disclosures, but without giving a timeframe.
UNEP wrote:
In the future versions of the platform, additional information will be provided that includes:
o A summary of operator and/or government response(s) to the notification process.
o A summary description of mitigation efforts and/or plans.
o Any past or future MARS detections linked to the event location.
The annual report reported as a case study about a successful engagement about an emissions event in Argentina.
“We haven’t designed MARS as a shaming tool,” said Manfredi Caltagirone, the head of IMEO, in an interview published Aug. 1, 2023, on the UNEP website. “We want the new information provided by MARS to be an opportunity to engage companies and governments in discussions about reducing methane emissions in the energy sector in a constructive and productive way – rather than just pointing fingers at them.”
Why 127?
EYE asked why there were 127 notifications, considering that more than 1,600 emissions were included in the data.
UNEP said, “Only 127 plumes met the requirements needed to be notifiable.”
Further, UNEP said:
- Of the Energy-sector plumes, only about 70% were from oil and gas and thus applicable to the MARS pilot. Of those, only 41% were notifiable in the sense that a high-resolution plume observation was available for facility-scale attribution (N.B. All Sentinel-5P/TROPOMI plumes are NOT notifiable unless there also exists a recent high-resolution detection for attribution). The maximum potential notification thus was about 28%.
- However, during the pilot phase, some events were not notified in countries where no direct engagement had occurred. As MARS is now fully functional, we are scaling up our ability to send notifications to direct focal points in countries where emissions are seen.
In addition, UNEP said data entries that predate 2023 “are from the same sources and were provided as additional information on the duration of the event.”
More Detail on the Process
EYE also asked UNEP, “What determines when a notification is made?”
UNEP’s full reply:
- Once UNEP’s IMEO has linked a methane emission to a facility via high-resolution satellite data, it is possible to notify stakeholders of that emission. If there are multiple emissions detected within the same region during the same timeframe, they may be “batched” together within a single notification.
- An initial notification is provided via email as quickly as possible after a detection is made. The notification provides preliminary information on the emission, including location, detection time, and the potential facility operator. Over the course of the following week, UNEP’s IMEO continues to analyze the emission and a subsequent notification is sent that includes further detail from this analysis, including potential source and size of the emission, in addition to whether the event is persisting.
- Notifications are always sent to national-level government contacts in the appropriate ministry, as determined by a country’s government. If UNEP’s IMEO is able to link an emitting facility to an operator that is a member of UNEP’s Oil and Gas Methane Partnership 2.0, the notification will also be sent directly to that operator. Otherwise, UNEP’s IMEO will request that the government assist it in notifying the facility operator.
- In the pilot phase, we provided notifications to governments following direct engagement. As MARS is now fully operational, we are scaling up our ability to send notifications to direct focal points in every country where emissions are seen.
In addition, UNEP said:
As MARS is now fully operational, we are scaling up our ability to send notifications to direct focal points in countries where emissions are seen. Our intention is to provide notifications for every notifiable emissions event (i.e. attributable to the facility-scale without ambiguity on localization).
Functionality of Data Tables
The data tables provided can’t be easily manipulated, for example, to group emissions by country.
The data is downloadable in two formats (GeoJSON and CSV).
UNEP said, “This is a beta version of the overall data platform and we will be adding new features over time.”
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