Joint Declaration from Energy Importers and Exporters on Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Fossil Fuels

The governments of the United States, European Union, Japan, Canada, Norway, Singapore, and the United Kingdom released a joint declaration affirming their commitment to accelerate GHG emissions reduction from fossil fuels energy production and consumption. The declaration acknowledges the importance of reducing methane emissions from the sector to ensure energy security and improve health outcomes, and calls for global action to reduce methane emissions as much as possible in order to meet international climate targets. 
To this end, the governments pledge to support domestic and international action through the following areas: 
1) adoption of policies and measures for to achieve rapid and sustained reductions in methane and CO2 emissions across the fossil energy value chain; 
2) adopting policies and measures to support robust measurement,; monitoring, reporting and verification; and transparency for methane emissions data in the fossil energy sector; 
3) strengthening coalitions to reduce methane and C02 emissions in value chains of internationally traded fossil fuels; 
4) mobilizing technical assistance and financing for methane and C02 mitigation in the fossil energy sector. 
The Declaration calls for the adoption of policies to capture, utilize, or destroy methane in the coal sector to the fullest extent practicable, including through pre-mine drainage, coal mine methane destruction, and ventilation air methane destruction. For the oil and gas sector, it calls for the adoption of policies and measures to eliminate routine venting and flaring and to conduct regular leak detection and repair campaigns in upstream, midstream, and downstream operations.
It further calls for policies and measures to improve the accuracy of methane emissions data, and affirms the need to enhance greenhouse gas inventories, including through improving data availability and through direct measurements at source level for gas and oil.

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