Sometimes seemingly intractable problems are not as impossible to solve as one might think. A case in point is the hole in the ozone layer which was largely resolved by the fluorocarbon-banning policies that stemmed from the 1987 Montreal Protocol. Over the years, we have spoken with one of the key crafters of this historic treaty, Durwood Zaelke, a couple of times on Sea Change Radio and this week we talk with Daphne Wysham, whose organization, Methane Action, is working with Zaelke and others to figure out a way to reduce methane emissions from the atmosphere. We discuss the existential threat humans face by emitting all of this methane, look at some of the barriers and possible solutions to the problem and learn about the Methane Emergency Brake campaign that Wysham and Zaelke helped create.
Narrator | 00:02 – This is Sea Change Radio covering the shift to sustainability. I’m Alex Wise.
Daphne Wysham (DW) | 00:23 – There are a variety of different strategies, but there is a real urgency to getting this underway in the next few years because we’re out of time and we need to be pulling the methane emergency break as quickly as possible.
Narrator | 00:39 – Sometimes seemingly intractable problems are not as impossible to solve as one might think. A case in point is the hole in the ozone layer, which was largely resolved by the fluorocarbon banning policies that stemmed from the 1987 Montreal Protocol. Over the years, we’ve spoken with one of the key crafters of this historic treaty, Durwood Zaelke a couple of times on Sea Change Radio, and this week we talk with Daphne Wysham, whose organization Methane Action is working with Zeki and others to figure out a way to reduce methane emissions from the atmosphere. We discussed the existential threat humans face by emitting all of this methane. Look at some of the barriers and possible solutions to the problem and learn about the methane emergency brake campaign that Weisman Zeki helped create. I am joined now on Sea Change Radio by Daphne Wysham. She is the CEO of Methane Action. Daphne, welcome to See Change Radio.
Daphne Wysham (DW) | 01:55 – Thank you. It’s good to be here.
Alex Wise (AW) | 01:57 – So why don’t you first explain what Methane Action is all about and what the mission of your organization is.
DW | 02:06 – Yeah. So Methane Action has been around for about four years, and we, uh, were launched prior to the launch of the Global Methane Pledge, which happened in 2021 and dating back to 2020. We were calling for a binding affair and binding global methane agreement, um, which we believe now more than ever is needed. We’ve, um, had several years to see the results of the pledges that countries have put forward, um, for 30% cuts below 2020 by 2030 of methane emissions. And unfortunately, there are two things wrong with a pledge. One is it’s insufficient to, even if everybody were to meet their, uh, methane pledges, it would be insufficient to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. Um, and secondly, people are not meeting those goals. So, um, we join, uh, the European Parliament, the, uh, prime Minister of Barbados and Chair of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, um, and a number of other leaders in calling for a binding global methane agreement, starting probably at the, uh, uh, subnational and then going up to the national level and the international level.
AW | 03:32 – So what is the Methane Emergency Brake Campaign? You just were in bond Germany representing that effort. Why don’t you spell out a little bit more in the detail of how this campaign should work ideally?
DW | 03:50 – Yeah. So the initial sort of co-sponsors of the Methane Emergency Brake Campaign are the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development based out of Washington, DC and Paris. Um, Methane Action, uh, based outta the US but working globally. And, uh, a group called Leave It in the Ground Organization, uh, or lingo for short. Um, all three of us have been watching with ALARM at rising methane levels and understand that the science suggests this is really one of the few tools that we have. Lowering methane emissions is one of the few tools that we have to avoid, um, tipping points that are looming ever larger, uh, the warmer the planet gets. Um, if we were to, for example, eliminate all manmade methane emissions tomorrow within 10 years, we could see a cooling of roughly half a degree Celsius. Um, so this is a significant tool in our toolbox that is not being sufficiently utilized. And one of the reasons it isn’t is because there aren’t any binding methane emissions reductions targets. And in fact, the us, which is the largest oil and gas producer in the world, has under Trump eliminated the, uh, the methane regulations that the Biden administration had put in place. So we’re going in the exact opposite direction of where we need to go on methane.
AW | 05:27 – So, I hate to ask this question because it evokes a collective PTSD, but how is your organization planning to handle methane talks with the US government now that there are climate change deniers in charge?
DW | 05:42 – There are ways of addressing the, the venting and the flaring of methane that is going on in the US from outside, namely, um, the European, uh, union is importing a lot of LNG uh, uh, import. They’re, they’re, they’re importing LNG from the us, uh, and have accelerated those imports in part ’cause they’re very concerned about the Russian, uh, imports that they had been relying on given the war in Ukraine. So, um, what we are saying to the EU is, keep in place. Do not weaken your standards on methane and apply them to, uh, imports. In fact, we need to strengthen them, um, as a way of, you know, playing the same game that Trump likes to play of, of, uh, imposing tariffs. What we need is something like a border carbon adjustment mechanism, which the EU is in the process of, of rolling out, uh, a similar mechanism for methane. And this would incentivize the kind of behavior that would have been incentivized with the methane fee that Biden had proposed on oil and gas producers in the US but from an outside party,
AW | 07:07 – Right? So there’s ways to tri to, to squeeze the Americans, just like we’ve tried to squeeze opec, when I say squeeze, try to change their practices to become more environmentally safe. So the EU could be kind of the, the leverage point to then engage corporate America to abide by the previous administration’s practices that the Biden administration had put into place. Is that, is that kind of the, the strategy kind of a triangulation.
DW | 07:40 – The starting with the EU, but expanding from the EU to other, uh, LNG importing countries like South Korea and Japan and other countries creating, um, a buyer’s club of higher standards on methane? As you know, obviously what we need to do is move away from LNG, uh, and, and methane gas, um, altogether as a source of energy. Um, but in the interim, what we need is not to reduce and lower the standards that are currently in place in the only region of the world that has strong standards, which is the eu. And that is in fact, what the Trump administration is lobbying, um, the EU to do is to, you know, you want these LNG imports, well, you’re gonna have to abide by our very, uh, environmentally unsustainable practices of just venting like crazy from the Permian Basin and all of these, uh, oil and gas, uh, fields that are essentially just unregulated. Um, we can see from space now with satellites just how significant these emissions are. Um, so we should be able to enforce, uh, stronger standards. You know, it should be a win-win, um, situation for the oil and gas industry because if they didn’t vent this gas, they could actually, uh, turn it into a commodity that could be sold. But there’s so much gas now being vented from, uh, so many oil and gas fields throughout the US and in particular in the southwest, that we are accelerating this methane emergency that we’re in rather than decelerating it.
AW | 10:13 – This is Alex Wise on Sea Change Radio, and I’m speaking to Daphne Wysham. She’s the CEO of Methane Action. So we’re talking about the natural gas production and flaring and other byproducts from the gas industry, the natural gas industry producing methane, but that’s not actually the majority of methane emissions globally. If you can give us kind of a snapshot of the composition of methane emissions, um, that would be terrific.
DW | 10:45 – All fossil fuels have methane, whether it’s coal, oil or gas as sort of just when you drill for oil, oftentimes gas will come out a along with the oil. And similarly, when you dig for coal, you’ll have methane, uh, which is one reason why, you know, they bring canaries into the coal mine to make sure that there aren’t major explosions due to the methane in the coal, or they did.
AW | 11:09 – They don’t still do that, do they?
DW | 11:11 – I don’t know if they still do that.
AW | 11:12 – That seems like a pretty archaic practice if they still do that.
DW | 11:16 – No, because of course, right now what we’re doing is open pit, uh, mountaintop removal and nothing like what they used to do, uh, decades and decades ago, which was underground mining, although there are some parts of the world where they do that. Um, so fossil methane, uh, is in all fossil fuels. Um, but we also have biogenic sources of methane, and those come from, uh, the, the largest source is from, uh, from cattle and from other, uh, uh, concentrated animal feed operations in particular are a big source of methane. Um, that’s in part because of the diet that they’re fed and the way that their manure is handled. But, um, cows belch methane, um, and that is one of the largest sources of methane in the world, believe it or not, it’s agricultural sources of methane are larger than, uh, fossil methane. In addition, you have methane being produced from rice patties, uh, which of course, that’s, that’s considered a survival emission in many parts of the world. So we’re not gonna be going after, uh, rice patties imminently, although there are ways of suppressing the production of methane by applying certain, uh, uh, both draining the, the, the rice patty and also applying, um, iron to the, to, um, the rice patties to suppress the production of methane. But there are, uh, the lowest of the low hanging fruit is the fossil methane. And that’s why our, among our top three demands is to abide by the, uh, the, the call from the International Energy Agency, which basically they’re, they’re considered a fairly conservative organization. They said, we can and must cut fossil methane by 75% by 2030, and we’re nowhere near that. So if we are to avoid surpassing 1.5 degrees Celsius, now, you could make the case, well, looks like we were already surpassing 1.5 because, uh, this last year we in fact did. But it, it, it’s hard to say whether or not on average, you have to look back in hindsight and find out whether or not we’ve surpassed 1.5 over the past 10 years, which we have not yet done. So there’s still a window of, of abiding by the IEA call for 75%. And in fact, the oil and gas industry said that it would be no problem to get to 100% reduction in methane emissions by 2030 back when there was a lot of talk around net zero by 2050. They said they were capable of doing this, but of course they’re not. And that’s why we need a binding emission methane emissions target.
AW | 14:22 – So from a strategic standpoint, what’s the benefit of narrowing your focus on methane and not including other greenhouse gases within your portfolio? Why focus on methane? What kind of was the inspiration behind creating Methane Action?
DW | 14:43 – Most people understand that CO2 is a problem, carbon dioxide, it’s, it’s, uh, it lasts in the atmosphere for probably hundreds if not thousands of years. Um, and we have been accelerating the production of CO2 in the atmosphere, uh, since the dawn of the industrial revolution with the consumption of fossil fuels. And what people haven’t fully understood is that methane is, um, responsible for, uh, roughly a third to a half of the warming that we’ve recently experienced. And, um, in fact, the rate of increase of methane in the atmosphere is faster than CO2 right now. And because it is instantaneously over a hundred times more potent than CO2, um, it’s a very potent greenhouse gas that we really need to be paying attention to over 10 to 20, uh, years. It’s roughly 82 to 86 times more potent than CO2, but instantaneously it’s over a hundred times more potent. And, um, what we’re seeing is not just a rise in, uh, anthropogenic or manmade sources of CO2, but we’re also seeing a rise in so-called natural sources of CO2 as climate change accelerates. So what I mean by this is, um, methane is produced, um, from wetlands, uh, from melting permafrost, and with climate change, we’re having both the problem of perm permafrost, uh, uh, melt accelerating, which is releasing methane that’s stored in the, in the formerly permanently frozen, um, tundra. And then in addition to that, we have expanding swamps in the tropics due to an increase in rainfall. So, um, in fact, it, it appears that tropical, um, wetlands may be the, the, the, the larger source of methane right now, but there could be an acceleration of methane being released from, from permafrost as, as the arctic, um, melts. So, um, this could create its own runaway, uh, methane feedback loop, which is very, um, would be very dangerous. We are already seeing the feedback loop play out now, and what we need to do is slow it down. So that’s one of the main reasons for focusing on methane.
AW | 17:25 – We’ve had Durwood Zaelke on the program before talking about some of the successes of the Montreal protocol and removing CFCs or f gasses from the atmosphere ended up, I believe, repairing the hole in the ozone layered. So Durwood is part of the Methane Emergency Brake Campaign. What are some of the lessons from the Montreal protocol that can carry over to lead the methane project? What kind of template can you work from to achieve your goals?
DW | 18:00 – What we’ve learned from the Montreal protocol is that it is possible to action on an urgent basis when people understand, you know, including Reagan. Um, and Thatcher were the, the, the people that fully understood the nature of the ozone, um, ozone depletion situation and what it potentially meant for, for human health in the environment. They were the ones who said, okay, we’ve gotta get going on a, an agreement to, to address these, uh, ozone destroying chemicals. And it was put in place in a matter of years. Um, and we are now seeing the recovery of the ozone layer as a result of that. Um, similarly, we believe that a, some sort of, whether it’s, again, the nature of the agreement has yet to be determined whether it would be along the lines of, uh, a protocol like the Montreal Protocol or whether it would be part of the UN F triple C, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or whether it would be, uh, something like what I’ve discussed so far about, uh, you know, some sort of border adjustment for methane. Um, there are a variety of approaches that could be undertaken, but really what we need is for people to do everything they can about their own methane footprint. And that means everything from switching away from gas, heat, and, uh, gas stoves, which are also bad for your, your health and, uh, can cause serious indoor air pollution. Um, but also, uh, composting, uh, taking food waste and making sure that it doesn’t end up in the landfill. Um, working on, um, ways of, uh, you know, ensuring that your diet is, is less meat intensive. So there are, there are small steps that can be taken at the local level. Um, but ultimately what we need is to hold the biggest emitters right now accountable for their emissions, which are, you know, big ag and, um, the fossil fuel industry and move towards restrictions on those methane emissions.
AW | 21:30 – This is Alex Wise on Sea Change Radio, and I’m speaking to Daphne Wysham. She’s the CEO of Methane Action. So Daphne, in your experience interfacing with these big emitters, where do you see the most traction generally? Is it with the corporate world or with governments or NGOs or partnering with like-minded organizations like Methane Action?
DW | 21:55 – There are a variety of actors that are very powerful, of course. Uh, grassroots movements, social movements are very powerful, and we’re in the process, it’s just three organizations right now that are leading, but we are in the process of getting, um, signatures and, and endorsements and partnerships with groups all over the world. Um, and, uh, we’re, you know, our goal is not to be, uh, three organizations running this campaign, but a, um, horizontal movement of people globally who are engaged and share a common, uh, goal of, of working towards a binding global methane agreement. There are a variety of tactics to be utilized, whether it’s looking at, uh, the investment portfolio of different socially responsible investors or working at the local level, passing resolutions for community composting, or there are a variety of different strategies, but there is a real urgency to getting this underway in the next few years because we’re out of time and we need to be pulling the methane emergency break as quickly as possible.
AW | 23:08 – And which governments and which companies are leaders on this issue in your mind? Which, which are the, the companies and the governments that you feel closely aligned with as you, you try to reach these goals.
DW | 23:22 – Within the EU, there is one country that has gone further than what the EU has required of countries, and that’s Denmark. They have a $100 a ton fee that they’re imposing on livestock, um, uh, as an, as a sort of a carrot in a stick to try to get, um, the, the meat and dairy industry to contain their methane emissions. Um, we’ll see if that goes beyond Denmark. Right now, that’s the only country I know of that has tried to, uh, impose any sort of fees on agricultural sources of, of methane. I, I can’t single out a particular company, but I would say that there are sustainable agricultural practices that generally are abided by, by smaller farmers, by organic farmers, by farmers that are really trying to work with nature, not work against it. And that’s, you know, so I think we will find a lot of partnerships in regenerative agricultural practices and businesses that are focused on regenerative and organic practices. You know, one of the reasons why CAFOs, the concentrated animal feed operations are such massive sources of methane is because there is, there’s a connection between size and sustainability. And the feed that is given to cattle that accelerates their production of fat is also also tends to make them belch methane more so there, there are all of these intertwined connections between what is good for us and what is good for the planet and what is good for the soil and what is good for the animals. Um, that I, I think, you know, we’re, we’re seeing a lot of animal rights groups that are championing this, this work, uh, because it is about, um, much more humane practices with regard to animals, um, that, uh, eventually does result in, in less methane emissions. You know, as we move toward toward more sustainable management of our waste, we’re also moving away from what has become too commonplace in the global north, which is to just incinerate it or dump it. And when you dump it, of course it produces a lot of methane.
AW | 25:51 – Coming back from your European trip, what takeaways did you have in terms of the way the European Union countries are viewing the United States now versus last time you were there?
DW | 26:06 – This was the first Bonn conference that I had been to, and I think it’s the first ever where the US was not present. Um, and in some ways that was a good thing because what the US has done in the past is both obstruct progress and provide sort of a, uh, uh, an obstructionist force that other countries can hide behind and they can also avoid taking action. So without the US there, um, trying to weaken regulations, you really saw, you know, a different dynamic. Now, was enough done in bond? No. Um, there’s, there’s a lot to be done before COP 30 in Beam in Brazil. Um, there’s some question about whether or not the goals owill actually be realized. One of the priorities for NGOs is, uh, a focus on a just transition away from unsustainable, um, industries, including the fossil fuel industry. But we now have the, the president of Brazil Lula, um, selling off oil and gas leases in the Gulf of the Amazon, uh, which he claims he needs to do in order to, in order to finance a just transition, which is of course totally absurd. Um, but that is, you know, that’s, that’s what we’re up against as we look at Cop 30 is the, the hypocrisy of not just Brazil, but of course, you know, most of the countries are not acting quickly enough on, on the climate targets that we’ve all set for ourselves.
AW | 27:53 – Daphne Wysham is the CEO of Methane Action. Daphne, thanks so much for being my guest on Sea Change Radio.
DW | 28:00 – My pleasure. Thanks, Alex.
Narrator | 28:16 – You’ve been listening to Sea Change Radio. Our intro music is by Sanford Lewis, and our outro music is by Alex Wise, additional music by Ripple Beck and The Beatles. Check out our website at Sea Change Radio dot com. That’s SEA change radio.com to stream or download the show or subscribe to our podcast, visit our archives there to hear from Bill McKibbin, van Jones, Paul Hawkin, and many others, and tune in to Sea Change Radio next week as we continue making connections for sustainability for Sea Change Radio. I’m Alex Wise.
