After leading the world on cutting methane, Canada faces stringent new standards in U.S. and Europe

Canada has been a world leader in regulating methane emissions from its oil and gas sector, putting out regulations well ahead of many other major emitters, but it needs to now update those regulations or risk falling behind the U.S. and Europe, experts say.

This is a big year for action on methane in Canada and abroad, and the federal government is planning on releasing new methane regulations this year that would further reduce emissions of the potent greenhouse gas from oil and gas production sites.

"Methane is one of the big opportunities for Canada to act quickly on climate, because methane is such a potent greenhouse gas, and if we stop adding it to the atmosphere we can really reduce the rate at which we're heating up the planet," said Tom Green, climate policy expert at the David Suzuki Foundation.

But the way Canada measures success in reducing methane may not line up with other countries. The federal government has set a near-term goal of reducing methane emissions at least 40 per cent below 2012 levels by 2025, and a more ambitious goal of 75 per cent below 2012 levels by 2030.

In contrast, U.S. regulations coming into effect next year and European Union (EU) standards being negotiated right now are focused on a marker called methane intensity. 

The methane intensity marker measures the proportion of methane that is lost during production (from leaks and venting from pieces of equipment or pipeline, or other sources). The ideal methane intensity would be zero, since that methane is both valuable as a fuel and harmful to the environment. 

"I think there's an importance of alignment in the goal. We need to reduce methane as soon as possible. It's the most important, most powerful immediate climate action we can take," said Matthew Johnson, head of the Energy and Emissions Research Lab at Carleton University.

"And countries and jurisdictions all around the world are recognizing this."

The U.S has set a methane intensity target of 0.2 per cent, meaning that only 0.2 per cent of the total methane produced is lost in the production process. Companies would have to pay an emissions charge for any additional methane that's lost over that amount.

The EU is similarly considering a 0.2 per cent methane intensity target, but may also impose it on any gas imports. Lawmakers in the European Parliament have asked for the stringent standards to be applied to other countries which export their gas to the EU, although the final regulations have yet to be decided.

"As long as we're aligning on the goal, looking for a target of 0.2 per cent intensity and below, and then heading towards net zero from there, we will be fine," Johnson said. 

"But if we don't and we're fixated on some percentage reduction from some arbitrary baseline, then we really do risk falling behind."

Complicating things further for Canada, research from Johnson's team and others has consistently shown that Canada's official estimates for methane emissions are significantly undercounted — actual emissions are 1.5 to two times higher. He says that means we don't really have an accurate picture of what emissions were in 2012 — and so we wouldn't really know how much Canada reduced its emissions by.

Attention has grown around methane, because it is about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a warming gas. But it lasts for a very short period of time, meaning reductions of methane now would have an impact on global temperatures very quickly.