India not joining the Oil & Gas Methane Partnership is a missed opportunity

Subject: Environment

Context:

The Methane Alert and Response System (MARS) initiative was launched by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) at the 27th Conference of Parties (COP27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change on November 11, 2022.

About the Methane Alert and Response System (MARS):

MARS is a satellite-based system to detect methane emissions and help industries and governments in mitigating them.
It is the first publicly available system for monitoring any greenhouse gas emissions.
It will map out major methane-detection events that will help UNEP to corroborate methane emissions reported by companies and analyse changes over time.
The initiative is funded by the European Commission, the US government, Global Methane Hub and the Bezos Earth Fund.

Working mechanism of MARS:

It works by integrating different satellite systems, starting with the satellite being managed by the European Space Agency called Sentinel 5P. (Sentinel 2 and PRISMA are two other satellite involved in the system.)
- It has a global coverage on a daily basis that we are going to be using to identify large methane plumes every day.
It will use the data to generate an enhanced map of methane hotspots.
MARS will work closely with the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership (OGMP) members.
There are two systems at work to measure methane emissions.

The Quicker one can detect the methane emissions with a rate of 10-15 ton per hour.
The slower one can detect the methane emissions of slower rate- around 1 tonne per hour. It will be used for deeper analysis.

Oil and Gas Methane Partnership (OGMP):

The Oil and Gas Methane Partnership (OGMP), launched at the 2014 United Nations (UN) Secretary General’s Climate Summit, was created by the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) as a voluntary initiative to help companies reduce methane emissions in the oil and gas sector.
Governments, international organizations, non-government organizations, and the oil and gas industry collaborate through the OGMP to raise awareness and responsibly address methane emissions.
The OGMP provides a protocol to help companies systematically manage their methane emissions from upstream oil and gas operations, as well as offers a credible platform to help member companies demonstrate actual reductions to industry stakeholders.
More than 15 percent of global natural gas production is represented by the 10 OGMP member companies: BP, Ecopetrol, Eni, Equinor, Neptune Energy International SA, Pemex, PTT, Repsol, Shell, and Total.
There are no Indian companies that have joined the OGMP.

Global Methane pledge:

The global methane pledge was adopted during COP26.
Under it, countries agreed to reduce global methane emissions by 30 per cent by 2030.
This will help to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
Methane is around 25 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and currently contributes to around a quarter of global warming. Its reduction is, thus, crucial for mitigating climate change.