The European Union reached an agreement on landmark rules to curb methane emissions across major industries on Wednesday, delivering a major boost to the EU’s pioneering Green Deal climate strategy.

The proposal was initially tabled by the European Commission last December as a central part of the EU’s methane strategy and 2030 climate plan. The deal, approved by representatives from the European Parliament and EU member states, includes proposed regulations to reduce methane emissions in the energy sector by around 30% on 2020 levels by 2030. The landmark agreement sets out a range of new monitoring, reporting and mitigation requirements for industries across the natural gas, oil and coal value chains.

For the first time, oil and gas operators will be required to conduct detailed asset-level methane emissions measurements using direct monitoring techniques. They will have to submit annual reports covering source-level data by 2024 for operated assets and 2026 for non-operated assets. Regular leak detection and repair surveys will also become mandatory under the rules. Starting January 2027, the regulations will require that new import contracts for oil, gas and coal only be concluded if the same monitoring, reporting and verification obligations are applied by exporters as for EU producers.

Experts from the Air Task Force, an organization specializing in climate-related research, have welcomed the agreement. The organization emphasized that these regulations have the potential to reduce more than 30% of global methane emissions from the oil and gas sector, which represents 7% of all man-made emissions globally. If these reductions are accomplished by 2030, they would represent 20% of the necessary progress toward achieving the Global Methane Pledge.

Flavia Sollazzo, Senior Director of EU Energy Transition at Environmental Defense Fund Europe, welcomed the landmark deal, stating:

This is a very clear message from the EU and particularly ahead of COP28 – that climate responsibility doesn’t stop at its borders. And that as the world’s largest buyer of natural gas, it is prepared to use its influence to help drive global methane emission reduction.

However, Esther Bollendorf, Senior Gas Policy Expert at CAN Europe, a climate action nonprofit, warned the rules could still allow dangerous emissions levels, stating:

Applying a methane intensity target only three years after entry into force of this regulation is far too little, too late, as methane emissions from producers outside the EU would risk remaining dangerously high up to 2030. We urge for the European Commission to be ambitious in fleshing out the delegated act, Member States to go for a speedy adoption in order to live up to EU’s commitments under the global methane pledge and making methane mitigation a genuine pathway to fossil gas phaseout by 2035.