Optimizing Policies and Regulations for Zero Routine Gas Flaring and Net Zero

Global policy actions to reduce the environmental and social impacts of natural gas flaring are primarily derived from voluntary arrangements. This paper evaluates stakeholder preferences amongst competing policies and regulatory options, optimizing environmental governance to eliminate routine gas flaring by 2030 and achieve net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2050, whilst addressing questions of justice and fair implementation. Using a mixed-methods social scientific approach, incorporating literature and document review, interviews, expert surveys, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (G-TOPSIS), we derive two competing perspectives on gas flaring policy strategy, with differences revealed through the AHP ranking process of individual criteria. All identified criteria and sub-criteria were integral to achieving the flaring and emissions targets, with “policy and targets” and “enabling framework” being the most important individual criteria. The “background and the role of reductions in meeting environmental and economic objectives” and ‘’nonmonetary penalties” were the key emergent sub-criteria. G-TOPSIS showed that fully implementing gas flaring policies and regulatory framework criteria to limit warming to 1.5 °C is the most effective policy alternative. Globally coordinated, uniform, and reciprocal legally binding agreements between countries to supplement national initiatives are imperative for improving the effectiveness of country-specific gas flaring policy strategies.