The Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC) and two other global investor groups are calling on companies to minimise methane emissions from gas and oil production through hydraulic fracturing.
IGCC, the European Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) and the North American Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR) will work with the Carbon Disclosure Project to develop the framework by October of this year, and are calling on companies to disclose their methane emissions and control plans under the framework, and to implement best practice and use technologies that effectively eliminate most methane emissions.
Consultation on the draft disclosure framework is in progress. The announcement by IGCC, IICGG and INCR follows in tandem with other international calls, including the International Energy Agency’s “Golden Rules for a Golden Age of Gas” publication. “Fracking” will also be a topic of discussion as part of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, also known as Rio+20, and also supports the fracking risk disclosure guidelines issued by the Investor Environmental Health Network , calling for the minimisation of air emissions from fracking operations.
“Methane is more than twenty times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas and has much greater short-term warming potential,” said Stephanie Pfeifer, IIGCC executive director in a statement. “Concerned with the negative economic impacts of methane leakage and its contribution to climate change, investors will be taking a range of measures to promote methane emissions reductions. These include engaging directly with companies to understand their approach to methane control, discussing effective regulatory measures with policy makers and working with industry to develop a framework to enable the monitoring of companies’ progress on methane control. With the technology which would substantially eliminate most methane emissions available, progress on this issue is eminently achievable.”