- In The News
- September 2024
Canary Media: Colorado launches first-of-a-kind landfill methane monitoring program
September 25, 2024
Colorado is leveraging funding from the federal Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program to tackle the third-largest source of methane, writes Canary Media.
“Landfills are the third-largest source of methane, a super-pollutant greenhouse gas that traps 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency places caps on methane and other emissions from landfills, experts say that monitoring and enforcement is largely on an honor system. An analysis published earlier this year found that 95 percent of landfills across eight states had at least one violation of EPA safe limits.
Colorado is aiming to change that. State officials are launching a large-scale initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that includes plans to implement cutting-edge technologies for monitoring methane emissions from the state’s 80 landfills. The program, funded by a $129 million Climate Pollution Reduction Grant from the EPA, is the first of its kind and could set a precedent for other states, said Suzanne Jones, the executive director of Eco-Cycle, a Colorado-based nonprofit that promotes the development of zero-waste communities.”
About the Alliance
Launched in 2017 by the governors of Washington, New York, and California to help fill the void left by the U.S. federal government’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the Alliance has grown to include 24 governors from across the U.S. representing approximately 60 percent of the U.S. economy and 55 percent of the U.S. population. Governors in the Alliance have pledged to collectively reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26-28 percent by 2025, 50-52 percent by 2030, and 61-66 percent by 2035, all below 2005 levels, and collectively achieve overall net-zero greenhouse gas emissions as soon as practicable, and no later than 2050.
The Alliance’s states and territories continue to advance innovative and impactful climate solutions to grow the economy, create jobs, and protect public health, and have a long record of action and results. In fact, the latest data shows that as of 2023, the Alliance has reduced its collective net greenhouse gas emissions by 24 percent below 2005 levels, while increasing collective GDP by 34 percent, and is on track to meet its near-term climate goal of reducing collective greenhouse gas emissions 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.
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