Methane Gas: Health, Safety, Economic, and Climate Impacts
Did you hear that Multnomah County Public Health recently recommended people move away from gas stoves because of the health hazards of indoor methane combustion? Curious to learn more about the health and climate harms caused by natural gas?
For all the dirty details, look no further than the recently updated report, Methane Gas: Health, Safety, Economic, and Climate Impacts; A case for equitable electrification (Version 2)
This report was written by a consortium of Pacific Northwest environmental and climate justice groups, originally released in 2021 and updated in November 20221. We’re reposting the Executive Summary of the report here, but for all the information, be sure to investigate the full 39 page report!
Executive Summary
“Cutting methane is the strongest lever we have to slow climate change over the next 25 years... We need international cooperation to urgently reduce methane emissions as much as possible this decade.”—Inger Anderson, UN Environment Programme (UNEP) director
Following COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland in November 2021, 122 countries around the world signed onto the Global Methane Pledge, committing to collectively reduce methane emissions by at least 30% below 2020 levels by 2030. These countries noted that reducing methane emissions is the “the single most effective strategy” for keeping global temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius. While this pledge represents the first national or international policy commitment on methane for many of the countries involved, an October 2022 report from Global Energy Monitor shows that many of those very countries continue to switch power plants from coal to methane gas, which could make meeting the goals of the pledge impossible. Thus, local and state-level policies to limit the expansion of gas and methane are crucial to stave off the worst impacts of the climate crisis.
In the Pacific Northwest, the gas industry continues to act in direct conflict with our region’s climate goals. Even as the industry claims to be working towards carbon neutrality and sustainability, it actively undermines climate action at all levels of government, expanding fossil fuel infrastructure and lobbying against climate policy. For years, gas utilities like NW Natural, Avista, and Cascade Natural Gas have promoted methane gas as a clean, safe energy alternative. From images of happy people at home, nestled by their gas fireplaces to using the name “natural,” these companies want everyone to believe they are environmentally conscious corporations you can trust. In attempts to grow their customer bases and stave off increased regulation of their dangerous product, gas companies have ramped up their greenwashing efforts, promoting methane gas as a fuel that is helping cities and states reach their carbon emissions reduction targets. This could not be further from the truth.
This compendium of research and reports can help to dispel confusion resulting from strategic misinformation campaigns designed by fossil fuel interests for elected officials and the public. The science and peer-reviewed research on health, safety, feasibility, economics, and climate are not on the side of the methane gas industry, as demonstrated by the following facts:
Electrification is the lowest-cost method to decarbonize buildings, increase efficiency, and protect families and communities from the hazards presented by gas.
The Northwest’s gas supply comes primarily from hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” a dangerous extraction method that poses immense health and safety risks to communities living near fracking wells, the climate, and drinking water for millions of people.
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, with up to 120 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.
Biomethane, commonly referred to as “renewable natural gas” (RNG), is still methane and is not a solution to mitigating the climate crisis, nor the health impacts associated with burning gas.
Burning methane indoors generates byproducts known to be harmful to human health, including nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter. These pollutants have been shown to cause or exacerbate respiratory conditions, including asthma, in children, the elderly, those with underlying health conditions, low-income, and Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) communities.
The dangerous health and safety impacts of gas—from extraction to compromised indoor air quality from gas stoves—fall disproportionately on low-income and BIPOC communities.
Nearly every month in the US there are massive and often fatal accidents involving gas explosions. An October 2016 gas explosion in Northwest Portland injured eight people and caused $17.2 million in property damages.
Given these facts, governments have a strong policy rationale for restricting new gas infrastructure and legislating a rapid and just transition toward electric and other non-combustion technologies in new and existing buildings. Resources must be allocated to electrifying homes of low-income households who cannot afford the up-front cost of replacing gas appliances, and information must be shared on how to mitigate the health impacts of indoor air pollution from gas stoves while the transition occurs. Allowing disinformation to delay or prevent evidence-based decision-making will result in enormous costs to human health, higher utility bills, stranded assets, and further destabilize our climate.
As communities across the Pacific Northwest know all too well, continuing “business as usual” instead of working towards meaningful climate action has dire consequences. It’s time to make important policy choices, including dramatically refocusing our infrastructure resource allocations. Research supports the rapid electrification of Pacific Northwest buildings as an affordable way to help meet Oregon’s carbon reduction goals and keep our communities healthy and safe.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A note from the authors
Since we originally published this report in August 2021, the call for equitable electrification has only become louder. As of November 2022, nearly 31 million people now live in one of 82 jurisdictions with policies requiring or encouraging the switch from fossil fuels to healthy all-electric homes and buildings.1 The tide is turning towards electrification because it is the safest way to power our buildings, for both our climate and our health.
Yet even as science and research all point to the growing benefits of electrification, the gas industry continues to pollute the policy making process with misinformation, delaying necessary action at all levels of government. From Southern Oregon to Northern Washington, the spread of misinformation by gas utilities about the safety of gas and methane has soared. Companies like NW Natural, servicing Oregon and Southwest Washington, have even reached new lows by marketing propaganda to elementary school children, through coloring books, word searches, and puzzles about “clean burning natural gas.”2 With this steady rise of marketing and misinformation, we believe it is of utmost importance that policy makers (and the general public) are able to:
1) identify false expressions of environmental care (greenwashing) as a cover for polluting and dangerous activities;
2) know where to find accurate data about the many health and safety impacts of the gas industry;
3) avoid undue influence by fossil fuel interests; and
4) make sound policy decisions for the health and safety of our communities in the just transition to a clean
energy economy.
We offer an updated version of this report as a local, Pacific Northwest-specific resource to equip elected officials and policy makers, community and business leaders, journalists, and the broader public, so we can all be equipped with the research-backed knowledge we need to safeguard our climate and the health and safety of our communities.
Contributors
Dineen O’Rourke, 350PDX
Nick Caleb, J.D., LL.M., Breach Collective
Katherine Muller, Ph.D.
Anne Pernick, Stand.earth
Melanie Plaut, M.D., Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility
Dylan Plummer, Sierra Club
Daniel Serres, Columbia Riverkeeper
Brian Stewart, Electrify Now
Noelle Studer-Spevak, Families for Climate
Theodora Tsongas, Ph.D., M.S., Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility Ann Turner, M.D., Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility