The US Department of Energy (DOE) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) say that applications are open for $850m in federal funding for projects that will help monitor, measure, quantify and reduce methane pollution from the oil and gas sectors.

Leaks of methane cause plumes of potent greenhouse gas to escape into the atmosphere and, as the International Energy Agency (IEA) highlighted in a report published last year, slashing it is imperative to limit global warming.

While methane has 80 times the warming power of CO2 in the first 20 years after reaching the atmosphere, unlike CO2 it does not remain in our atmosphere for as long. This means that reducing methane emissions will have a significant impact in lowering global temperatures.

In the latest update of the IEA’s Global Methane Tracker, published in March 2024, it found that methane emissions from the energy sector remained at a near record high in 2023.

The Tracker found that the US – the largest global producer of oil and gas...