Lauren Ellis, Research Analyst, Environmental Health Earlier this week, EDF submitted comments to EPA on the agency’s draft scope for the manufacturer-requested risk evaluation of D4 under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). This is EPA’s first draft scope under the Biden Administration – providing an opportunity to see where improvements have been made and […]

Lindsay McCormick, Program Manager This month, EDF published an article along with collaborators from Auburn University and Mississippi State University, based on a pilot we conducted in partnership with local organizations[1] to comprehensively test and remediate lead in water at 11 child care facilities in Illinois, Michigan, Mississippi and Ohio. The study found that while […]

Lindsay McCormick, Program Manager This month, EDF published an article along with collaborators from Auburn University and Mississippi State University, based on a pilot we conducted in partnership with local organizations[1] to comprehensively test and remediate lead in water at 11 child care facilities in Illinois, Michigan, Mississippi and Ohio. The study found that while […]

The post New Study Highlights Lead in Water at Child Care Facilities and Holes in Current EPA Rule first appeared on EDF Health.

This week on Delta Dispatches, Jacques and Simone chat with friend of the show Helen Rose Patterson, senior outreach coordinator with the National Wildlife Federation (NWF). She’s here to talk about NOLA River Fest 2021, happening this week! Don’t miss the virtual panels covering a range of interesting topics concerning the Mississippi River: https://www.facebook.com/MississippiRiverDelta/events/. In this episode we also talk about the Coastal Community Handbook, a quick guide to all things coastal. You can read the digital version or request ...

Read The Full Story

The post Delta Dispatches: NOLA River Fest 2021 appeared first on Restore the Mississippi River Delta.

This week on Delta Dispatches, Jacques and Simone chat with friend of the show Helen Rose Patterson, senior outreach coordinator with the National Wildlife Federation (NWF). She’s here to talk about NOLA River Fest 2021, happening this week! Don’t miss the virtual panels covering a range of interesting topics concerning the Mississippi River: https://www.facebook.com/MississippiRiverDelta/events/. In this episode we also talk about the Coastal Community Handbook, a quick guide to all things coastal. You can read the digital version or request ...

Read The Full Story

The post Delta Dispatches: NOLA River Fest 2021 appeared first on Restore the Mississippi River Delta.

The world gets serious about cutting methane pollution

This is the Methane Moment.

As policymakers prepare for the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, data continues to show that the methane problem is worse than we thought.

In August, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that we cannot reach the Paris climate goals by tackling only carbon dioxide.

Cutting methane from fossil fuels, livestock production and other industries is the fastest way to slow today’s warming, even while we continue to decarbonize our energy systems.

Fortunately, this urgency is finally being recognized at the highest levels in ways it hadn’t before, setting the stage for real progress.

It’s worth considering how we reached this point. Unlike so much of the climate fight, decision makers mostly did listen to the science on methane. That science is producing a new ecosystem of satellite-based measurement tools to help cut emissions at much as possible, as soon as possible. 

How we drove the science that made the case

Experts have long known that methane is a potent greenhouse pollutant. But it was almost always treated as an afterthought — partly because it breaks down much faster than carbon dioxide.

But for 20 years after its release, methane packs over 80 times the warming power of CO2. That’s why methane pollution from human activities is responsible for at least 25% of today’s warming.

A decade ago, as a boom in unconventional oil and gas drilling was making the U.S. the world’s top oil producer, EDF realized that methane could be a serious problem. Trouble was, nobody had any real data on how much was escaping from where, or who was responsible.  

It was clear that the conventional process of simply waiting for governments and universities to figure it out would take too long.

So in 2012, EDF began organizing a series of 16 independent, peer-reviewed scientific studies involving 150 researchers from academic, industry and public institutions to understand how much methane was escaping from the U.S. oil and gas supply chain.

A year later, the first paper took the industry and policymakers by storm, revealing wide discrepancies in the distribution of emissions by specific activities and questioning the accuracy of existing emissions data based on desktop estimates.

In 2018, a synthesis of the studies concluded that U.S. oil and gas methane emissions were 60% higher than EPA estimates.

This spring, new research led by EDF scientist Ilissa Ocko showed that a rapid, full-scale effort to reduce methane pollution across major sectors could slow worldwide warming by as much as 30%.

The paper estimates that we could cut emissions in half by 2030 using existing solutions — preventing a quarter of a degree C of warming by mid-century, and over half a degree C by 2100. That’s huge.

Turning data into action

The depth and breadth of the methane science almost immediately ignited a series of important policy actions.

In 2014, with bipartisan support, EDF worked with industry leaders in Colorado to create the world’s first set of regulations limiting oil and gas methane emissions.

Those rules became the inspiration for federal policy announced two years later, which in turn set the stage for the first set of international methane goals in a collaboration between the U.S., Mexico and Canada. 

Now, the Biden administration is preparing to publish new rules requiring oil and gas producers to cut methane pollution from 900,000 facilities nationwide, making good on the promise he made last January to not only restore but expand safeguards unlawfully rolled back by his predecessor.

Methane science has also set the stage for methane to assume a newly prominent role at COP26 in Glasgow, where a growing number of countries are signing up to pledge a 30% cut in their collective methane emissions by 2030.

In December, the European Commission will release new policies requiring companies to measure, report and verify methane emissions; improve efforts to find and fix methane leaks; and end routine venting and flaring — the industry’s embarrassingly wasteful habit of simply setting fire to extra methane.

Pinpointing methane with precision

Enforcing policies like these, as well as holding companies accountable for a long list of voluntary methane commitments, requires enormous amounts of emissions data covering operations around the globe (and not just from oil and gas; agriculture and other sectors are also important).

For this, there is only one solution: satellites.

EDF scientists have published pioneering research proving the power of satellite technology to measure methane emissions on a global scale.

Those findings proved the concept behind the 2018 announcement by EDF President Fred Krupp that we were going to launch a satellite of our own to help both companies and countries locate, measure and cut methane emissions faster.

Now being built by a newly created EDF subsidiary, MethaneSAT will measure emissions with unparalleled precision, tracking methane at levels as low as three parts per billion.

The data will be public, free of charge and on an ongoing basis, so that stakeholders and the public can see and compare results.  

MethaneSAT will join an expanding ecosystem of remote sensing instruments that together will give us a clear and comprehensive picture on progress on the ground in near-real time.

Equipped with that data, we have a fighting chance to make a crucial difference for our climate.

Take action: Now is the time to go bold on climate saburto October 26, 2021 - 12:24

The world gets serious about cutting methane pollution

This is the Methane Moment.

As policymakers prepare for the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, data continues to show that the methane problem is worse than we thought.

In August, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that we cannot reach the Paris climate goals by tackling only carbon dioxide.

Cutting methane from fossil fuels, livestock production and other industries is the fastest way to slow today’s warming, even while we continue to decarbonize our energy systems.

Fortunately, this urgency is finally being recognized at the highest levels in ways it hadn’t before, setting the stage for real progress.

It’s worth considering how we reached this point. Unlike so much of the climate fight, decision makers mostly did listen to the science on methane. That science is producing a new ecosystem of satellite-based measurement tools to help cut emissions at much as possible, as soon as possible. 

How we drove the science that made the case

Experts have long known that methane is a potent greenhouse pollutant. But it was almost always treated as an afterthought — partly because it breaks down much faster than carbon dioxide.

But for 20 years after its release, methane packs over 80 times the warming power of CO2. That’s why methane pollution from human activities is responsible for at least 25% of today’s warming.

A decade ago, as a boom in unconventional oil and gas drilling was making the U.S. the world’s top oil producer, EDF realized that methane could be a serious problem. Trouble was, nobody had any real data on how much was escaping from where, or who was responsible.  

It was clear that the conventional process of simply waiting for governments and universities to figure it out would take too long.

So in 2012, EDF began organizing a series of 16 independent, peer-reviewed scientific studies involving 150 researchers from academic, industry and public institutions to understand how much methane was escaping from the U.S. oil and gas supply chain.

A year later, the first paper took the industry and policymakers by storm, revealing wide discrepancies in the distribution of emissions by specific activities and questioning the accuracy of existing emissions data based on desktop estimates.

In 2018, a synthesis of the studies concluded that U.S. oil and gas methane emissions were 60% higher than EPA estimates.

This spring, new research led by EDF scientist Ilissa Ocko showed that a rapid, full-scale effort to reduce methane pollution across major sectors could slow worldwide warming by as much as 30%.

The paper estimates that we could cut emissions in half by 2030 using existing solutions — preventing a quarter of a degree C of warming by mid-century, and over half a degree C by 2100. That’s huge.

Turning data into action

The depth and breadth of the methane science almost immediately ignited a series of important policy actions.

In 2014, with bipartisan support, EDF worked with industry leaders in Colorado to create the world’s first set of regulations limiting oil and gas methane emissions.

Those rules became the inspiration for federal policy announced two years later, which in turn set the stage for the first set of international methane goals in a collaboration between the U.S., Mexico and Canada. 

Now, the Biden administration is preparing to publish new rules requiring oil and gas producers to cut methane pollution from 900,000 facilities nationwide, making good on the promise he made last January to not only restore but expand safeguards unlawfully rolled back by his predecessor.

Methane science has also set the stage for methane to assume a newly prominent role at COP26 in Glasgow, where a growing number of countries are signing up to pledge a 30% cut in their collective methane emissions by 2030.

In December, the European Commission will release new policies requiring companies to measure, report and verify methane emissions; improve efforts to find and fix methane leaks; and end routine venting and flaring — the industry’s embarrassingly wasteful habit of simply setting fire to extra methane.

Pinpointing methane with precision

Enforcing policies like these, as well as holding companies accountable for a long list of voluntary methane commitments, requires enormous amounts of emissions data covering operations around the globe (and not just from oil and gas; agriculture and other sectors are also important).

For this, there is only one solution: satellites.

EDF scientists have published pioneering research proving the power of satellite technology to measure methane emissions on a global scale.

Those findings proved the concept behind the 2018 announcement by EDF President Fred Krupp that we were going to launch a satellite of our own to help both companies and countries locate, measure and cut methane emissions faster.

Now being built by a newly created EDF subsidiary, MethaneSAT will measure emissions with unparalleled precision, tracking methane at levels as low as three parts per billion.

The data will be public, free of charge and on an ongoing basis, so that stakeholders and the public can see and compare results.  

MethaneSAT will join an expanding ecosystem of remote sensing instruments that together will give us a clear and comprehensive picture on progress on the ground in near-real time.

Equipped with that data, we have a fighting chance to make a crucial difference for our climate.

Take action: Now is the time to go bold on climate saburto October 26, 2021 - 12:24

This piece was co-authored by Stephanie Jones, Attorney, Climate Risk and Financial Regulations, and Gabe Malek, Project Manager, Investor Influence at EDF. Climate change poses grave risks across society, including “more frequent and intense storms, wildfires, and heatwaves as well as more damaging droughts and more extensive ecosystem losses.” All people face climate harms, today: […]

This piece was co-authored by Stephanie Jones, Attorney, Climate Risk and Financial Regulations, and Gabe Malek, Project Manager, Investor Influence at EDF. Climate change poses grave risks across society, including “more frequent and intense storms, wildfires, and heatwaves as well as more damaging droughts and more extensive ecosystem losses.” All people face climate harms, today: […]

The post Washington and Wall Street must act now to protect Americans’ financial futures from unfolding climate change harms appeared first on Climate 411.

Next month, the New York Public Service Commission will be deciding whether a rate case settlement proposal between National Grid’s upstate gas and electric utility (Niagara Mohawk) and other groups is in the public interest, and whether the proposal is consistent with New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. This is the first major […]

The post Climate planning is key for New York’s gas infrastructure appeared first on Energy Exchange.

Next month, the New York Public Service Commission will be deciding whether a rate case settlement proposal between National Grid’s upstate gas and electric utility (Niagara Mohawk) and other groups is in the public interest, and whether the proposal is consistent with New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. This is the first major […]

Real-time data will put farmers and policymakers on the same page when making water management decisions.

The post Measuring water use in California’s Delta is a “fool’s errand.” OpenET will change that. first appeared on Growing Returns.

Real-time data will put farmers and policymakers on the same page when making water management decisions.

The post Measuring water use in California’s Delta is a “fool’s errand.” OpenET will change that. first appeared on Growing Returns.

Real-time data will put farmers and policymakers on the same page when making water management decisions.

The post Measuring water use in California’s Delta is a “fool’s errand.” OpenET will change that. first appeared on Growing Returns.

Real-time data will put farmers and policymakers on the same page when making water management decisions.

The post Measuring water use in California’s Delta is a “fool’s errand.” OpenET will change that. first appeared on Growing Returns.

Restore the Mississippi River Delta is excited to debut a new documentary film, Eternal Flow: Mississippi River Views from Louisiana at this year’s 9th annual NOLA River Fest. This “stacked documentary” by filmmaker Kevin McCaffery is a unique collection of vignettes on different cultural, historical, economic and ecological perspectives on the Mississippi River. For miles and for centuries, the Mississippi River has been the central pulse of our nation. New Orleanians reflect on the intrigue, history and power of the ...

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The post Eternal Flow: Mississippi River Views from Louisiana appeared first on Restore the Mississippi River Delta.