Google Joins Mission to Monitor Methane Emissions From Space

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Facts

  • Google on Wednesday announced a partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund to process methane emissions data obtained by the MethaneSAT mission. It will then map global oil and gas infrastructure to identify sources of the greenhouse gas using AI.1
  • According to the tech giant, this collaboration project aims to make information about significant methane leaks available to governments and regulators, allowing them to take action, rather than notifying companies who own the infrastructure that burns or vents methane.2
  • The satellite mission to monitor methane pollution, which allegedly accounts for nearly a third of emissions-induced global warming, is scheduled to launch in March aboard a SpaceX rocket after several delays due to the pandemic and supply chain crisis.3
  • MethaneSAT has several other big-name supporters in addition to Google, including the New Zealand Space Agency, the Bezos Earth Fund, and the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.4
  • This comes as more than 150 countries and the world's biggest oil and gas companies signed the Global Methane Pledge last year, agreeing to drastically reduce methane emissions by 2030. Additionally, the US and EU introduced regulations to crack down on emissions from fossil fuel infrastructure.5
  • Reportedly 80 times more powerful than CO2 at heating the planet during its first 20 years in the atmosphere, methane is the main component of fossil gas. While eliminating most of its sources of release is possible, this would increase costs in the short term and reduce output.6

Sources: 1Reuters, 2BBC News, 3Financial Times, 4Verge, 5Business Insider and 6Bloomberg.

Narratives

  • Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by Guardian. For too long, international efforts have focused exclusively on cutting CO2 to tackle climate change. While doing so is indeed crucial in the long term, methane and other greenhouse gases represent a fast-moving climate threat that must be addressed now. And here lies the importance of this satellite mission to spot methane leaks around the world.
  • Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Mother Jones. Though reducing methane emissions would be a good thing, the tempting and popular narrative that this action alone is a miracle solution for buying time to address the climate crisis is nothing but a fallacy and wishful thinking. The very idea that methane is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide is flawed because there is no true equivalence between short-lived and long-lived gases.

Predictions