Russia and Iran Drive Global Gas Flaring Surge in 2024
New data shows Russia and Iran are leading a troubling rise in gas flaring, undermining international efforts to eliminate the wasteful and polluting practice.
Gas flaring — the burning of natural gas released during oil extraction — was supposed to be on a steady path toward elimination. Instead, the latest data cited by Reuters reveals that global flaring volumes are climbing again, with Russia and Iran emerging as the primary drivers of that reversal. The trend represents a significant setback for coalitions of governments and energy companies that have pledged to end routine flaring within this decade.
The persistence of flaring in these two countries is particularly consequential given their scale as energy producers. Both nations operate vast oil and gas infrastructure, and flaring at that volume releases enormous quantities of methane and carbon dioxide — greenhouse gases that accelerate climate change. When major producers fail to curb the practice, the environmental math becomes exceedingly difficult for the rest of the world to offset through incremental gains elsewhere.
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The geopolitical dimension adds another layer of complexity. Russia, operating under sweeping Western sanctions following its invasion of Ukraine, faces constrained access to the advanced technology and capital investment that could otherwise help operators capture gas that is currently burned off. Iran, similarly isolated by long-standing international sanctions, confronts comparable structural barriers. In both cases, economic and diplomatic isolation appears to be contributing directly to worsening environmental outcomes — a dynamic that complicates how the international community might respond.
For global climate commitments, the surge is a sobering signal. Reducing flaring has long been considered one of the lowest-hanging fruits in the effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions quickly, since much of the technology needed to capture and utilize that gas already exists. When the world's largest flaring nations move in the wrong direction, it raises serious questions about whether voluntary pledges and market incentives alone can achieve the ambitions that multilateral frameworks have set out. Policymakers and climate advocates will likely need to reckon with the limits of persuasion when sanctions-isolated states operate outside the norms those frameworks depend on.
Continue reading at Reuters.
