Environmental Regulatory Systems of Shale Gas Development

This chapter develops an analytical framework, focusing on the coverage and implementability of monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) systems, to qualitatively evaluate the probability of detecting noncompliance—for enhancing compliance—in China and the United States on three prominent environmental impacts, including water contamination, water consumption and methane leakage. The results show that China should improve significantly on the implementability dimension and pay urgent attention to currently weak MRV systems on water contamination. The United States needs to extend the MRV coverage of ground water consumption. Only when the environmental impacts in shale gas development were effectively controlled, the fuel switching to replace coal could bring significant environmental gains.