Methane leaks from oil and gas production are one of the culprits behind increased methane emissions over the decade from 2007 to 2017, two new studies cited by Reuters have revealed. Methane leaks from oil and gas operations were the main contributor to higher methane emissions in the United States, while in South Asia, South America, and Africa, the biggest contribution came from agriculture, especially livestock farming. In China specifically, the increase in methane emissions was driven by both the oil and gas industry, and agriculture. “It’s more robust evidence that fossil fuels and agriculture are both equally contributing to the increase of methane contributions in the atmosphere,” one of the studies’ authors, NASA Goddard environmental scientist Ben Paulter, told Reuters. “Previous studies erroneously concluded that biological sources are the cause of the rising methane,” the author of an earlier study that found shale oil and gas to be […]