Methane is rising faster than other greenhouse gases: researchers. September 10, 2024

Livestock farming is one of the main sources of methane, along with energy generation and landfills William WEST

By AFP - Agence France Presse

Methane is rising faster than other greenhouse gases: researchers.

Concentrations in the atmosphere of the powerful greenhouse gas methane are rising at a rapid pace, threatening countries' efforts to meet their climate targets, researchers warned on Tuesday.

“Methane is increasing faster in relative terms than any other major greenhouse gas and is now 2.6 times higher than in pre-industrial times,” said an international group of researchers under the aegis of the Global Carbon Project in a study published in Environmental Research Letters.

Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas produced by human activity after carbon dioxide, the main sources being agriculture, energy production, and the rotting of organic waste in landfills.

In the first 20 years, its impact on the atmosphere is around 80 times greater than that of carbon dioxide, but it decomposes more quickly than CO2.

This opens up the possibility of drastically reducing the climate impact in the short term. But the researchers found that despite efforts to reduce methane emissions, atmospheric concentrations of the gas are still rising.

An average of 6.1 million tons of methane was added to the atmosphere per year in the 2000s.

This figure rose to 20.9 million tons per year in the 2010s. By 2020, the figure will reach 41.8 million tons.

“Anthropogenic (man-made) emissions have continued to rise in almost every other country in the world, except Europe and Australia, which are showing a slow downward trend,” Pep Canadell, executive director of the Global Carbon Project and one of the study's co-authors, told AFP.

The biggest increases occurred in China and Southeast Asia and are mainly linked to coal mining, oil and gas production, and landfills, according to the researchers.

The La Nina climate phenomenon has also led to an increase in methane from natural sources, they said.

A drop in nitrogen oxide pollution in 2020, when transportation use fell due to the COVID-19 pandemic, had a paradoxical impact. It is essential to prevent methane from accumulating in the atmosphere.

The increase in methane pollution is undermining efforts to prevent the Earth's average temperature from rising more than 2.0 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

A “Global Methane Commitment” was launched in 2021 by the European Union and the United States to reduce global methane emissions by 30% compared to 2020 levels, by the deadline of 2030.

More than 150 countries signed up, but not China, India or Russia.

“At the moment, the goals of the Global Methane Pledge seem as distant as an oasis in the desert,” said the lead author of the Environmental Research Letters article, Stanford University scientist Rob Jackson.

“We all hope they're not a mirage.”

China and the United States are preparing to host a summit on greenhouse gases other than CO2 later this year, which could raise the prospect of new commitments from governments.

Barron's news department was not involved in the creation of the above content. This article was produced by AFP.

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