The president shouldn’t have started his war on methane with the fossil fuels sector. tarczas/Thinkstock In the latest climate change executive action, the White House unveiled a plan on Wednesday to regulate methane for the first time, aiming to reduce emissions from the oil and gas industry by 40-45 percent on 2012 levels by 2025. On its face, that sounds like a big deal. And it will certainly get a mention in the State of the Union address on Tuesday. But like President Obama’s previously touted actions on climate change, the new methane regulations don’t pass the smell test. (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.) Methane is a big driver of global warming, second only to carbon dioxide. But the thing is, in the short term—and when talking about climate change, the short term is increasingly important as we blow through the carbon budget—methane is vastly more efficient at warming the planet. On a 20-year timescale, methane (which is the principal component of natural gas) has 86 times the global warming potential of CO2. That’s important, because on our current global emissions pathway, we only have about 27 years left before we lock in levels of warming that scientists and governments classify as “dangerous.” Simply put, cutting methane immediately is the biggest bang for our apocalypse-prevention buck. But Obama shouldn’t have started his war on methane with the oil and gas sector. Read the rest at Slate. Original post – Forget the Oil Industry’s Methane. Obama Should Crack Down on Cows Instead.

Original article: 

Forget the Oil Industry’s Methane. Obama Should Crack Down on Cows Instead.