Clean Air Task Force Global Methane Program Director Jonathan Banks Shares His Insights on COP 28 in New Episode of “Environmental Insights”

CAMBRIDGE MA. – With 28th Conference of the Parties (COP 28) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change well underway, Jonathan Banks, the global director of the Methane Pollution Prevention Program at the Clean Air Task Force (CATF), is expressing his hopes that the work being done in Dubai will result in significant reductions in global methane emissions in the years to come.

Banks is the guest in a special mid-COP episode of “Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.” The podcast is produced by the Harvard Environmental Economics Program. Listen to the interview here.

Hosted by Robert N. Stavins, A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development at Harvard Kennedy School and director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program and the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, Environmental Insights is intended to promote public discourse on important issues at the intersection of economics and environmental policy.

COP 28, which began on November 30 and is scheduled to run through December 12, has featured a great deal of discussion on a variety of issues, with an unprecedented amount of attention to methane emissions and mitigation.

“I'm just so amazed at how much attention and action I've seen on methane mitigation, and that's a huge change because I've been coming to the COP for a long time, and we've never ever seen anything like this,” Banks remarked.

Leading up to the COP, there have been growing efforts to have countries incorporate methane reduction pledges into their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the terms of the Paris Agreement.

“Many times, countries will lump all greenhouse gases together and create one target for the total greenhouse gases, but the push has been to get explicit mentions of methane in their NDCs, and we've made a lot of progress in that space over the last year to get a really high percentage of members of the Global Methane Pledge with methane into their NDC,” Banks said. “The new push really is to go beyond that and to get countries to set specific targets for methane in their NDCs.”

In the recently announced Sunnylands Statement, both the United States and China, two of the largest methane emitting countries, pledged to include methane emission pledges in their NDCs in the next round, representing one of the ways that bilateral and multilateral agreements can supplement the efforts taking place under the auspices of the UNFCCC.

“For all its positives [the UNFCCC process] does have some faults in that it is extremely cumbersome. It is difficult to move things at any speed through that process, and speed is what we need when it comes to methane… The other day, Inger Andersen, the head of the United Nations Environment Program, described methane as our lifeboat and we have to take it. It is the thing that we need to do the fastest in order to start to bend the curve on methane emissions. And so being outside of the UNFCCC process at least gives the opportunity for greater speed,” Banks remarked.

Banks said he is also encouraged by several announcements of major pieces of legislation and regulation at COP 28.

“The United States announced their final regulations for the oil and gas sector, which could achieve up to an 80 percent reduction from the regulated sources it will cover. We saw the Canadian government announce their draft regulations, which we'll get about a 75 percent reduction from the oil and gas sector. And right before COP, we had the European Union finalize its regulations for oil and gas, and that also included, for the first time ever a methane import standard, which will apply to all gas that is bought and sold into the E.U.”

There is also growing attention being paid to the agriculture sector, Banks mentioned.

“2030 is when we need to hit our 30 percent reduction target to keep 1.5 [global temperature rise] in reach. But after 2030, most of the methane emissions reductions are going to need to come from the agriculture sector. That's where the growth will be. That's where we will have made the least progress,” he said. “Because the [mitigation] costs are typically high and then it's just harder to deploy things, there really needs to be a lot of focus on developing more solutions and building out the science around this… Those are some big things [and I am excited to see] a lot more attention to this.”

Banks said he is also very heartened by the improving relationship between the U.S. and China, which will most likely increase their cooperation on climate policy.

“What we saw for the last year and a half or so or almost two years is that China and the U.S. weren't talking on climate or anything else, and that is never a good thing. When they're not talking, we're not making any progress. I know that [lead U.S. climate negotiator] John Kerry's team put in a massive amount of work to develop the relationship again in a way that allows for the U.S. and China to speak and to reach agreement and make progress. I'm really excited about that,” he said.

Banks’ interview is the 13th episode of 2023 in the Environmental Insights series, with future episodes scheduled to drop each month.

“Environmental Insights is intended to inform and educate listeners about important issues relating to an economic perspective on developments in environmental policy, including the design and implementation of market-based approaches to environmental protection,” said Stavins. “We speak with accomplished Harvard colleagues, other academics, and practitioners who are working on solving some of the most challenging public problems we face.”

Environmental Insights is hosted on SoundCloud and is also available on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Podcast Addict, and Spotify.

LINK TO PODCAST: https://on.soundcloud.com/9LB6y