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methane
COP30 Was Another Failed Climate Summit, But the Path Away From Fossil Fuels Is Here
The path from COP30 requires fewer pledges and more enforceable governance. Countries already know what must be done. They must do it.
Nov 30, 2025
It appeared to be a grim déjà vu when the final gavel dropped in Belem, Brazil and the COP30 text once again avoided naming fossil fuels.
But this apparent diplomatic failure obscured something more consequential: after hours of fraught, last-minute negotiations, countries reaffirmed the “United Arab Emirates consensus” from COP28 — the only UN agreement to date to reference a fossil-fuel phaseout. And the pathway it implies is already taking shape. In April, Colombia and the Netherlands will convene governments in Santa Marta, Colombia for the first global summit dedicated explicitly to the transition away from fossil fuels.
Tripling Renewable Energy, Doubling Efficiency, and Cutting Methane
At COP28 in Dubai, governments committed to tripling renewable energy and doubling energy efficiency by 2030. Combined with deep cuts to fossil methane, these pledges form a powerful trio. According to the Climate Action Tracker, fully implementing them would reduce projected warming by about 0.9°C this century, from 2.6˚C to 1.7˚C — enough to determine whether Paris Agreement targets remains within reach. If delivered, they would do more to collapse fossil-fuel demand than any language missing from the COP30 outcome text.
The energy system is already shifting. In the last two years, China has driven an unprecedented solar surge — adding more capacity in 2024 alone than the rest of the world combined, now hosting roughly half of global installed solar power, and exporting ultra-cheap panels that are flooding markets globally. As solar prices plunge, renewables are undercutting coal and gas markets globally. Doubling energy efficiency, if it can be achieved, cuts demand at a scale equivalent to adding vast new clean-power capacity, but without the economic and environmental burden of new plants.
Deep cuts to fossil methane — the primary component of gas, and a climate pollutant roughly 80 times more powerful than CO₂ over 20 years — require producers to eliminate leakage, venting, and routine flaring. These measures raise compliance costs, increase saleable gas, and make new fossil expansion harder to justify. Taken together, these commitments amount to a key part of the de facto fossil-fuel phaseout pathway.
But voluntary pledges alone won’t get us there. The Global Methane Status Report 2025 finds that despite over 150 countries endorsing the Global Methane Pledge, methane emissions continue to rise.
And even when we look beyond voluntary pledges to the domestic laws, regulations, and policy measures that represent a plan of action — as reflected in countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Methane Action Plans — the gap remains enormous. Fully implementing all NDCs would cut global methane emissions by only about 8 percent below 2020 levels by 2030. That is far short of the 30 percent Global Methane Pledge goal and well below the 45 percent cut UNEP associates with keeping 1.5°C within reach.
The EU Leads the Way on Methane Regulation
The missing ingredient is enforcement — and the most important development on that front is not the Global Methane Pledge but the EU Methane Regulation.
Adopted in 2024, the EU rules apply not only to methane emitted within Europe but also to imported fossil fuels. Because the EU is the world’s largest importer of oil and gas — and its suppliers account for roughly 30 percent of global oil and gas methane emissions — these rules may do more to cut global methane than any voluntary pledge ever could. For the first time, countries exporting gas and oil to Europe must meet strict leak-detection, monitoring, and venting and flaring requirements. Non-compliant fuels can effectively be shut out of the EU market.
This is regulatory gravity: when the world’s largest buyer sets a standard, producers must adapt or lose access.
Some already have. Companies like ConocoPhillips have set near-zero methane-intensity targets by 2030 and earned top-tier marks for emissions reporting — clear signals that they intend to compete under strict import regimes. Meanwhile, fossil-fuel trade groups are lobbying aggressively to weaken the EU rules, arguing they threaten U.S. LNG exports. Investors disagree: in October, asset managers representing over €4.5 trillion urged the EU not to dilute nor delay its methane law, highlighting methane as a material financial risk.
The deeper truth is that the EU methane rules are already going beyond the Global Methane Pledge and achieving reductions in fossil-methane emissions across borders, backed by market access and legal penalties rather than voluntary promises.
Science points in the same direction. The International Energy Agency concludes that methane from fossil-fuel operations could be cut by around 75 percent by 2030 using technologies available today. Combined with renewable and efficiency pledges, these reductions undermine the economic case for expanding fossil-fuel production. New LNG terminals, oil fields, and long-lived gas infrastructure would rapidly become uneconomic — stranded assets in the making.
Pledges Are Not a Plan
Methane is responsible for roughly a third to a half of today’s warming, and because it is short-lived, rapid reductions can deliver measurable cooling within a decade. Without binding limits on fossil methane, the world cannot meet its climate goals, no matter how fast renewable energy grows.
This is the real lesson of COP30: pledges are not a plan. Tripling renewables, doubling efficiency, and slashing methane can transform global energy systems — but only if they are backed by binding rules, border measures, and enforcement. The EU methane regulations represent the first serious attempt at such enforcement.
The next opportunity to broaden that effort will not come at COP31, but in April 2026, when Colombia and the Netherlands co-host the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta.
It will be the first global summit to center the production side of the climate crisis. And it exists because grassroots movements made it unavoidable: years of pressure from youth organizers, Indigenous land defenders, and frontline communities pushed governments and companies toward positions once dismissed as radical — including today’s mainstream demand for a fair, full fossil fuel phaseout. Santa Marta is happening not as a symbolic gesture, but because people insisted on real action.
If COP30 could not bring itself to state that fossil fuels must be phased out, Santa Marta can. And it can ground that commitment in the tools governments have already endorsed: accelerated renewables, deep efficiency gains, and enforceable methane standards — led, in practice, by the EU.
For the United States, the moment is defining. Federal methane rules are being dismantled. But U.S. states need not wait. Colorado, New Mexico, and California already have some of the strongest methane rules in the world. By aligning with Europe’s approach — and sending governors or senior officials to Santa Marta — they can help build a transatlantic coalition for binding methane limits and an orderly fossil-fuel phase-down.
The path from COP30 requires fewer pledges and more enforceable governance. Countries already know what must be done. The task now is to turn an implicit roadmap into a binding framework capable of delivering the cuts that matter most — starting with methane in the oil and gas sector.
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Trump EPA Finalizes 'Indefensible and Illegal' Delay to Methane Pollution Standards
"The Trump administration has once again chosen polluters over people, sacrificing the health of communities and climate to serve the fossil fuel industry," said one advocate.
Nov 27, 2025
With methane more than 28 times as potent as carbon at trapping heat in the atmosphere in a 100-year period, climate experts agree that reducing methane leaks from oil and gas fields would be one of the fastest and most effective ways of making a measurable impact on planetary heating—but President Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday flatly refused to do so, instead announcing a delay on a requirement for fossil fuel companies to limit methane emissions.
The Biden administration had introduced the requirement for oil and gas firms to begin reducing their emissions this year, but the EPA said companies will now have until January 2027 to comply with the rule. The administration is also considering repealing the requirement entirely.
Lauren Pagel, policy director for Earthworks, called the delay "indefensible and illegal."
"The Trump administration has once again chosen polluters over people, sacrificing the health of communities and climate to serve the fossil fuel industry," said Pagel. “Every day national methane rules are delayed means more methane in the air, more toxic pollution in our lungs, and more irreversible climate damage."
The EPA claimed it was providing companies with a "more realistic timeline" for complying with the requirement, and said the action would "save an estimated $750 million over 11 years in compliance costs."
Methane can leak from oil and gas wells, pipelines, and other fossil fuel infrastructure, and companies often intentionally release methane through flaring. The fossil fuel industry is the largest industrial source of methane emissions in the US, where emissions of methane have risen sharply in recent years as the Biden administration oversaw record production of oil and gas, even as it sought to reduce emissions through the methane requirement and other regulations.
While saving money for fossil fuel companies, the delay on the rule could lead to 3.8 million more tons of methane entering the atmosphere, according to the Trump administration's own estimates.
"After years of scientific work and public engagement, this administration’s decision to delay methane pollution standards implementation yet again is a blatant act of climate denial and disregard for public health. The EPA’s job is to protect people, not pad the pockets of oil and gas executives," said Pagel.
In addition to contributing to global heating and the extreme flooding, hurricanes, heatwaves, and other destructive weather events that come with it, methane emissions are linked to higher ground-level ozone pollution made up of tiny particles that can cause respiratory and cardiac problems, cancer, and strokes.
Grace Smith, senior attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), noted that the methane standards have already been working "to reduce pollution, protect people’s health, and prevent the needless waste of American energy"—progress that will now be reversed by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Trump.
“The rule released today means millions of Americans will be exposed to dangerous pollution for another year and a half, for no good reason,” said Smith. “Delaying the methane standards threatens people’s health and undermines progress by industry leaders.”
“What’s more, the Trump administration rushed to push through this harmful rule without meaningful transparency or a chance for the public to weigh in,” added Smith. “EDF is already in court challenging EPA’s first attempt to delay these vital protections. We will continue to oppose the rule released today, so that people can breathe cleaner air.”
EDF and the grassroots group Moms Clean Air Force expressed particular concern over nearly 18 million people in the US who live near active oil and gas wells.
"Children in my community and across the nation need a strong and comprehensive oil and gas methane rule as soon as possible," said Patrice Tomcik, senior national field director for Moms Clean Air Force.
EDF noted that "proven, cost-effective solutions are available to help oil and gas operators meet the standards while reducing waste and monetary losses," and both large and small producers have expressed support for the federal methane regulation as fossil fuel-producing states have begun implementing the standards.
The rule announced Wednesday, said EDF, "ignores the strong opposition to the rule from members of impacted communities and wide variety of other Americans."
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The US Isn’t Leading at COP30—But It Is Un-Damming Its Way to Climate Resilience
By removing obsolete dams, the US is reducing greenhouse gas emissions and building climate resilience.
Nov 20, 2025
As delegates huddle in Belém, Brazil for the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP30, they are considering how to prevent runaway climate change, and also how to bolster resilience to extreme weather. The United States won’t have much to offer officially—the Trump administration has said it won’t send any high-level delegates. And with President Donald Trump pulling the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement earlier this year, the country is far from a climate leader these days.
But all is not lost. Local level climate work continues in the United States, with accomplishments worth cheering—and replicating. For the last few years, I’ve tracked one of the most overlooked: the removal of harmful and obsolete dams. The United States has been leading the global charge on dam removals. In just the last 25 years nearly 2,000 dams have been blasted and backhoed from our rivers and streams.
Dam removals, like the four-dam effort completed last year on the Klamath River, are often celebrated for helping imperiled fish, like salmon. But they also offer two important benefits for the climate.
The first is reducing emissions. A growing body of scientific research dating back to the 1990s has found that reservoirs from dams can produce greenhouse gas emissions, some on par with thermal power plants. The biggest culprit is methane, a potent greenhouse gas that traps 80 times more heat as carbon dioxide over 20 years. As organic material breaks down in a reservoir, methane is diffused from the water into the air.
Dam removals aren’t a climate cure-all, but the magnitude of the crisis we face will require all the tools we can muster—and master.
As we take stock of our greenhouse gas emissions, an honest accounting of the input from dams could help us make reductions where dams are unneeded, unsafe, or doing more harm than good. In some states there are thousands of “deadbeat” dams, which serve no purpose at all anymore, and should be put on the chopping block. And if you’re wondering if it makes sense to remove infrastructure that can produce “clean” energy, know that the vast majority of large US dams—upward of 97%—don’t produce power.
The second is strengthening resilience. Many dams are outdated, dilapidated, or not designed to handle the onslaught of water that comes with climate-amplified storms. Some have already failed, risking lives and costing millions. After Hurricane Helene slammed North Carolina last year, 40 dams were damaged or destroyed. Expect to see more of that. A recent report from researchers at Utah State University found that incidents of dam failures or interventions needed to prevent failures are skyrocketing. From 1990 to 1999 we averaged two such incidents a year. That number jumped to an average of 50 a year from 2020 to 2023.
After two years of dangerous floods, Vermont has gotten the message. Last year the state passed a law to identify dams that worsen flooding and create a fund to remove them. Other states are also assessing dam removal to boost climate resilience. Removing damaging dams and helping rivers reconnect with their floodplains can help protect communities from severe weather and save money.
Dam removals offer other climate resilience benefits. Dams hold back water, but they also block the movement of sediment, which depletes coastal beaches and speeds erosion. One of the most notorious examples is the Matilija Dam near Ojai, California, a now-defunct dam that has corralled nearly 9 million cubic yards of sediment. Removing Matilija would reinvigorate downstream beaches in Ventura. As rising seas eat away at ocean beaches, upstream dam removals can help protect coastal communities.
Dams also change the temperature of rivers. As climate change pushes up the mercury, some reservoirs are becoming more like bathtubs. Higher water temperatures can foster toxic algal blooms that threaten human health and kill wildlife. Dam removals can flip the script, helping to restore more natural stream temperatures and flows, improving water quality in rivers that millions of Americans rely on for drinking water. It can also support biodiversity by enabling aquatic animals to find cooler upstream waters to better weather our changing climate.
Dam removals aren’t a climate cure-all, but the magnitude of the crisis we face will require all the tools we can muster—and master. Several decades of dam removals across the US has proved they work to restore rivers better and faster than anything else. Now let’s put them to use for climate action, too
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