B.C. has a methane-emissions problem.

That's clear from recent study published in Environmental Science & Technology.

Authored by David R. Tyner and Matthew R. Johnson, it concluded that actual methane releases in B.C. were 1.6 to 2.2 times greater than current federal inventory estimates.

They arrived at this result through combining airborne Lidar [light-detection and ranging] remote sensing, parallel controlled releases, optical gas imaging [OGI], and pneumatic device count data.

But politicians and senior bureaucrats have not been given a great deal of information on how to address this emissions problem in a recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

This is despite the very reason for the creation of the IPCC—"to provide policymakers with regular scientific assessments on climate change, its implications and potential future risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation options".

In fact, the IPCC's sixth assessment report has actually come under criticism for not giving sufficient attention to methane in its 41-page summary for policymakers.

An IPCC spokesperson, Katherine Leitzell, told Inside Climate News that more information on methane will be out in another report coming early next year.

“The aspects related to methane are indeed limited, and focused on the climate system response to a set of five scenarios for greenhouse gas emissions,” Leitzell acknowledged. “However, there is an entire chapter (Chapter 6) dedicated to SLCFs (short-lived climate forcers) and their influence on the climate system, for the first time in a WGI (Working Group I) report.”

The Environmental Defense Fund's Ilissa Ocko told Inside Climate News that reducing methane emissions "is the single fastest, most effective way there is to slow the rate of warming right now".

Tyner and Johnson's study on methane emissions in B.C. was initiated by the B.C. government and the Oil and Gas Commission. 

"More than half of emissions were attributed to three main sources: tanks (24%), reciprocating compressors (15%), and unlit flares (13%)," Tyner and Johnson wrote.

They noted that these "are the sources driving upstream oil and gas methane emissions, and specifically, where emerging regulations must focus to achieve meaningful reductions".

"The stark difference in the aerial and OGI results indicates key gaps in current inventories and suggests that policy and regulations relying on OGI surveys alone may risk missing a significant portion of emissions," they wrote.

Methane's efficiently traps heat

Why does any of this matter?

It's because methane (CH4) has 25 times the heat-trapping capacity of carbon dioxide over a 100-year period, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, even though it has a much shorter life span.

In 2018, there were 8.88 million tonnes of carbon-dioxide-equivalent methane emissions in B.C., according to the last provincial inventory. That was up two percent over the previous year.

Of those, 3.78 million carbon-dioxide-equivalent tonnes were produced by the energy sector, up four percent from the previous year.

Total emissions in B.C. in 2018 reached 67.9 million tonnes of carbon-dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gases.

This means that methane, according to official provincial figures, accounted for 13 percent of all greenhouse-gas emissions in B.C., according to the last inventory.

The EPA reports that south of the border, methane accounts for about 10 percent of all human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions.

After agriculture, natural-gas and petroleum systems are the second largest source of methane emissions in the U.S. That's because methane is "the primary component of natural gas".

The B.C. NDP government has been eager to stimulate a provincial liquefied-natural gas-industry with tax breaks and incentives.

That's what convinced a Shell Oil–led consortium to proceed with the LNG Canada project in Kitimat.

According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives senior economist Marc Lee, these tax breaks and incentives included "eliminating the LNG income tax, a lower price for BC Hydro electricity, exemption of the provincial sales tax on construction materials and a rebate on new carbon taxes".

"This is all in addition to other subsidies currently in place—such as extremely generous royalty credits for fracking operations, which virtually eliminate the public rents gas companies must pay for extracting a public resource, and which subsidize roads and electricity infrastructure," Lee wrote in a policy note.