Your intrepid hosts dig deep into 'Tackling Australia's Coal Mine Methane Problem.'
In a tantalising pre-COP27 gathering your intrepid hosts start by dissecting the implications of the Australian Government's commitment to sign up to the Global Methane Pledge. An initiative spear-headed by the EU and US ahead of COP26, the pledge requires signatories to commit to cutting methane emissions 30% on 2020 levels by 2030. More seaweed coming to a trough near your friendly neighbourhood cows? Most certainly, but as always, there are sectors that present more quick wins (read on!) and others that will be slower to mooove.
The locus of our focus this week is a paper by UK-based think tank Ember, 'Tackling Australia's Coal Mine Methane Problem' by Dr Sabina Assan. The paper picks up on the recent revisions by the IEA to Australia's estimated fugitive methane emissions from coal mines based on new-fangled satellite imagery and suggests measures to improve measurement, reporting, mitigation and ultimately, avoidance of coal mine methane emissions. A topical choice ahead of COP27 to be sure. What did we make of it you may ask? Listen on for spicy vindaloo and yogurt antimatter takes!
Frankie's One More Thing starts us off at the bleak end of the climate action spectrum with UNEP's Emissions Gap Report 2022. TLDR: there is currently no credible pathway to 1.5C and current policies have us on track to 2.8C of warming by the end of the century. Your intrepid hosts, ever the optimists, like to picture the window into a clean energy future Utopia is just that bit further ajar with comfort taken in recent commitments from the US and the conservative nature of models representing the uptake of renewable energy (see episode 11!).
Tennants's One More Thing had him scandalously plugging another podcast! Quelle horreur! Michael Liebreich, we salute your fantastic pod Cleaning Up and in particular, your recent episode with former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis on the structure of energy markets. A cracking and timely conversation about the role of Government in driving more structural energy market governance reform. If you felt so inclined to return the favour to your friendly neighbour pod here at Let Me Sum Up we'd love to have you on to talk all things energy transition and dare I say it, explore demand side action with fellow efficiency acolytes. Slide on in to our DMs ;-)
Luke's One More Thing brings us home by christening YOU our dear listeners with a well deserved moniker "Summer-upperers". With more syllables than the title of the pod we feel this is incredibly ON BRAND for your fortnightly one-hour, 45-min podcast on all things climate and energy. Massive thanks to listener Cynan for the inspo in coining the collective noun for this burgeoning pod community!
The next time you hear from us dear Summer-upperers will be from COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt! We look forward to dissecting and reporting the goings on over the next two weeks. Make sure you follow us on Twitter at @LukeMenzel, @TennantReed and @FrankieMuskovic and in the meantime please send us your spicy vindaloo takes and suggestions for papers at mailbag@letmesumup.net.