The new rules will eventually require landfill operators to take action when a satellite or airplane detects a methane leak, improve routine leak monitoring and reporting and mandate stronger action on recurring issues. The protections will add to a suite of regulations the state passed in 2010, which made California the first state to develop stricter standards than the federal government.
For two years, global temperatures have exceeded the 1.5C heating limit laid out in the Paris climate agreement. This overshooting will have devastating consequences, the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, has warned. The biggest worry for scientists is that further heating could trigger irreversible tipping points, such as the widespread drying out and dying off of the Amazon, or the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
Less than two years ago, a group of the world's biggest food companies, including Nestle SA, Danone SA and Kraft Heinz Co., announced a major alliance to cut methane emissions from their hundreds of thousands of dairy suppliers. Last month, however, Nestle's logo vanished from the initiative's website. Officials at the Swiss food giant confirmed that they've withdrawn from the effort, known as the Dairy Methane Action Alliance.
Not all projects focused on renewable energy, though. Two listed in the document, one for $300 million to Colorado State University and another for $210 million to the Gas Technology Institute, would have helped oil and gas producers large and small reduce methane emissions from their wells. The Gas Technology Institute is a research and development organization that mostly caters to the natural gas industry. The group had a dozen awards canceled, according to the document, totaling $417 million.
In the U.S., more than one third of food goes to waste. As such, more food ends up in landfills than any other material. There, organic products decompose and produce methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to warming the planet. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, discarded food is responsible for 58 percent of methane emissions from landfills. But this organic waste can instead be put to good use if it is composted.
