How to Fix Flaring for a Quick Emissions Win

The document highlights the environmental impact of natural gas flaring, particularly in the US, and outlines a seven-step framework for abatement including prohibiting routine flaring, increasing transparency, and implementing carbon pricing.

• Natural gas flaring releases CO2, methane, black carbon, and other greenhouse gases, with CO2 emissions alone equaling more than 6 million passenger vehicles. Poorly maintained, inefficient, or unlit flares are especially concerning because they release excess methane, which has a warming potential 86 times greater than carbon dioxide.
• The United States has been the top global producer of natural gas since 2011, with production increasing from 20 trillion cubic feet (tcf) in 2009 to over 33 tcf in 2019. Flaring has also increased; the US Energy Information Administration reported that 538 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas were flared in 2019, a volume that more than doubled between 2017 and 2019.
• The increase in US flaring is driven by a lack of pipeline capacity in oil-dominant fields and the perception that capturing flared gas is not economical, especially when gas prices are low.
• The document proposes seven steps for flaring abatement: prohibiting routine flaring by 2025, increasing emissions transparency (including disclosing metered volumes and quantifying "methane slip"), establishing climate-aligned lending and buying principles, enabling takeaway options through producer-pipeline cooperation, implementing carbon pricing, creating a comprehensive methane strategy, and promoting best practices.
• Specific regional examples of flaring mitigation include Alaska and Colorado, which have banned routine flaring, and Norway, where carbon pricing combined with strict permitting and volume limits has resulted in the lowest flare intensity of any country's oil production.

APA

RMI (2021). How to Fix Flaring for a Quick Emissions Win. https://rmi.org/resources/how-to-fix-flaring-for-a-quick-emissions-win/

Chicago

RMI. How to Fix Flaring for a Quick Emissions Win. 2021. https://rmi.org/resources/how-to-fix-flaring-for-a-quick-emissions-win/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=How to Fix Flaring for a Quick Emissions Win |date=27 January 2021 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/how-to-fix-flaring-for-a-quick-emissions-win/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2021how, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{How to Fix Flaring for a Quick Emissions Win}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2021}, month = jan, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/how-to-fix-flaring-for-a-quick-emissions-win/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }