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Climate benefits of U.S. EPA programs and policies that reduced methane emissions 1993-2013
Citation:
Melvin, A. M., M. C. SAROFIM, AND A. R. CRIMMINS. Climate benefits of U.S. EPA programs and policies that reduced methane emissions 1993-2013. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY. American Chemical Society, Washington, DC, 50:6873-6881, (2016).
Impact/Purpose:
For the past 20 years, the EPA has promoted reductions in anthropogenic methane emissions through the establishment of voluntary methane reductions programs and regulations that have provided the co-benefit of reducing methane while controlling for other harmful air pollutants. In this peer-reviewed publication, we provide the first analysis ever conducted to quantify the climate benefits (i.e. reduction in global temperature rise) of reduced methane emissions attributed to EPA’s existing voluntary programs and regulations. Additionally, we estimated costs associated with reduced climate and health impacts resulting from the methane emissions reductions over this time period.
Description:
The United States (U.S.) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established voluntary programs to reduce CH4 emissions, as well as regulations that provide co-benefits of reducing CH4 emissions while controlling for other air pollutants. These programs and regulations address four sectors that are among the largest domestic CH4 emissions sources: municipal solid waste landfills, oil and natural gas, coal mining, and agricultural manure management. Over the 1993-2013 time period, 127.9 Tg of emissions reductions were attributed to these programs, equal to about 18% of the counterfactual (or potential) emissions over that period, with almost 70% of the abatement due primarily to landfill sector regulations. Reductions attributed to the voluntary programs increased nearly continuously during the study period. We quantified how these reductions influenced atmospheric CH4 concentration and global temperature, finding a decrease in concentration of 28 ppb and an avoided temperature rise of 0.006 °C by 2013. Further, we monetized the climate and ozone-health impacts of the reductions, yielding an estimated benefit of $255 billion. These results indicate that EPA programs and policies have made a strong contribution to CH4 abatement, with climate and air quality benefits.
URLs/Downloads:
Climate benefits of U.S. EPA programs and policies that reduced methane emissions 1993-2013 (PDF, NA pp, 1158 KB, about PDF)Climate benefits of U.S. EPA programs and policies that reduced methane emissions 1993-2013
Supplementary Information for Climate benefits of U.S. EPA programs and policies that reduced methane emissions 1993-2013 (PDF, NA pp, 111 KB, about PDF)