Methane pollution emerged as a major issue on the EU climate agenda in 2021. From generating headlines across the continent to the joint EU-U.S. Global Methane Pledge launch at COP26, the call to tackle methane emissions is now being endorsed by hundreds of head of state and government. With the Global Methane Pledge, more than 150 countries have publicly committed to reducing global methane emissions by 2030.
In December 2021, the Commission proposed the first ever EU wide policy aimed at tackling methane in the fossil fuel sector, an area that offers the quickest and easiest routes to reducing methane emissions. The Council released its version of a proposal to tackle methane emissions in December 2022, and Parliament continues to debate key contents of its proposal, including critical components such as frequency for leak detection and repair, inclusion of regulations on imported fossil gas, and transparency over monitoring, reporting, and verification.
The need to tackle methane is relatively new, both in Europe and in climate policy more generally. While the work done by Clean Air Task Force and others around Europe has firmly established the problem of methane emissions from the oil and gas sector as an issue European policymakers need to address, public opinion is often absent from the discourse.
Clean Air Task Force and researchers from Georgetown University and University of California Santa Barbara commissioned YouGov to conduct a representative survey of 6,251 voting-age respondents from four countries central debate over methane regulations in the European Union: France, Italy, Germany, and Poland. This is the first cross-national survey of public attitudes toward regulating methane in the energy sector.
The survey, conducted in August 2022, focused on better understanding public knowledge about the effects of methane and fossil gas on the climate and capturing attitudes towards policies targeting methane abatement in Europe, including key aspects of issues at the center of the debate
Source: catf
