Friends of the EarthIn partnership with Environmental Defense Fund, sent the document "Guidelines for an Italian strategy on methane emissions from the natural gas supply chain" to the Prime Minister Mario Draghi last October 21st. Day on which the European Parliament approved the final report on the Methane Strategy which expresses itself in favor of binding measures on methane and emission reduction targets, while the announced Global Methane Pledge will be the focus of COP26 in November.
The Italian strategy aims to represent a shared effort with the main Italian natural gas industries and associations to achieve objectives and commitments aimed at containing methane emissions by 2030.
In this sense, Italy can make a serious and consistent contribution to the implementation process of the European Green Deal, starting with the initiatives envisaged by the Methane Strategy, with a policy tool resulting from the dialogue between associations, operators and institutions.
Following are the main objectives of the document sent to Mario Draghi: reduction by 2030 of 72% of total methane emissions of the gas supply chain in Italy; yield standard no higher than 0.2% of the emission intensity for upstream operations in Italy (the share of methane emitted into the atmosphere compared to the volume of natural gas produced); assignment to ISPRA of the task of preparing a specific annual report for monitoring methane emissions in the natural gas supply chain and of representing Italy at the IMEO (International Methane Emissions Observatory); definition of information standards that allow bilateral reciprocity agreements to promote the adoption of a robust monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) system for gas produced or imported in Italy.
