Methane seeps from waste at a dumping zone in Belgharia, India Jonas Gratzer/LightRocket via Getty Images
More than 100 countries, including the US, Japan and Canada, have pledged to significantly cut emissions of methane, a short-lived but powerful greenhouse gas.
The Global Methane Pledge announced today at COP26 in Glasgow, UK, commits signatories to reducing their overall emissions by 30 per cent by 2030, compared with 2020 levels. The US government also published a detailed blueprint of how it intends to meet the goal.
The new initiative emphasises making cuts by tackling methane leaking from oil and gas wells, pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure. Significant amounts of the gas also come from other sources, such as livestock farming and decaying waste in landfill sites.
While international climate summits usually focus mostly on carbon dioxide, the dominant driver of the 1.1°C of global warming that has occurred since pre-industrial levels, methane is responsible for about 30 per cent of global warming to date, and atmospheric concentrations of the gas have surged since 2007, sparking concern from scientists.
“Cutting back on methane emissions is one of the most effective things we can do to reduce near-term global warming and keep to 1.5°C,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, referring to the 2015 Paris Agreement’s toughest climate goal.
The voluntary pledge is backed by 15 of the world’s biggest methane emitters including the European Union, Indonesia and Iraq. In total, 105 countries have signed up and John Kerry, the US president’s special envoy on climate, said he expects the number to grow.
However, there are some significant omissions. Missing from the pledge are China, India and Russia, with the latter notorious for leaky fossil fuel infrastructure. It also doesn’t include Australia, where major plumes of methane from coal mines have been identified.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau announced his country would cut methane emissions from its sizeable oil and gas industry by 75 per cent by 2030. That is how fast the International Energy Agency says methane emissions will need to be cut if the world is to reach net zero by mid-century.
The pledge was hailed as “game-changing” by US president Joe Biden, who has worked with the European Union to lead the initiative. “One of the most important things we can do to keep 1.5°C in reach is reduce our methane emissions,” he said. Biden said he would tackle US methane emissions using regulations from the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Department for Transportation, which has responsibility for some gas pipelines.
Observers said the new effort on methane marked important progress on curbing climate change. In a statement, Jim Watson at University College London said: “This looks like a significant step forward on progress to tackle a highly potent greenhouse gas at COP26.”
Myles Allen of the University of Oxford said the commitment was welcome, but it was important to bear in mind CO2’s far greater contribution to climate change. “My only worry is that people have to realise that methane is not a substitute for reducing CO2,” he says.
He notes that even the most ambitious plans for cutting methane emissions in the short term will only avoid around 0.1 to 0.2°C of global warming by 2050. By contrast, current CO2 levels are driving about 0.2°C of warming per decade. “Unless we get CO2 under control, action on methane is kind of moot. It worries me that it’s being touted as the great success of COP26,” says Allen.
One key technological advance in recent years has been the launch of satellites, such as those by Canadian firm GHGSat, that can pinpoint methane leaks with far greater accuracy than before. The Environmental Defense Fund, a US non-profit organisation, is due to launch its own methane-monitoring satellite next year.
Global methane emissions from the oil and gas industries stood at 70 million tonnes last year, roughly equivalent to all the EU’s annual CO2 emissions.
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