"The travel restrictions and economic unraveling triggered by the coronavirus have led to an unprecedented drop in carbon emissions worldwide. That may feel like a rare bit of silver lining—and yet climate advocates aren’t celebrating. Many are worried about an uptick in emissions of the lesser-known greenhouse gas: methane.
"Unlike carbon emissions, methane emissions don’t decrease when the world’s economy slows down," says Poppy Kalesi, policy director for European oil and gas at the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund. "With lower oil and gas prices, we already see efficiency savings in companies, which means that they might be more relaxed about their environmental protocols."
Atmospheric methane constitutes the second largest source of global warming after carbon dioxide. Much of that is released in the course of oil and gas production, and much of that, in turn, comes from leaks. Methane is colorless and odorless, and with millions of miles of pipeline in the U.S. alone, leaks are difficult to predict, let alone detect. Just one leak from a fracking rig in Ohio in 2018 released about 120 metric tons of methane an hour for 20 days before its operator, a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil Corp., could stop it, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last year."
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