Methane Experts Urge Cuts To Meet Climate Targets

Experts urged countries to cut methane emissions in the energy industry as a quick and relatively cheap way of slowing global warming, at a key conference wrapping up Thursday

Geneva, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Mar, 2024) Experts urged countries to cut methane emissions in the energy industry as a quick and relatively cheap way of slowing global warming, at a key conference wrapping up Thursday.

The second-biggest greenhouse gas has a much more powerful, but shorter-lasting warming impact on the climate than carbon dioxide.

Finding ways of slashing methane emissions could therefore put a dint in global temperature increases -- and provide high returns on climate investment.

The Global Methane Forum 2024, hosted at the United Nations in Geneva from Monday to Thursday, aimed to generate momentum on replicable methane mitigation methods.

"When it's emitted, it's 120 times more warming than carbon dioxide. Which means that one tonne of methane has the effect of 120 tonnes of CO2," forum moderator Dario Liguti told AFP.

"Shutting down those emissions now has an immediate impact on the increase of temperatures, as opposed to CO2 which takes much longer," said Liguti, head of the sustainable energy division at the UN's UNECE economic agency.

The outcomes of the forum, which is seeking to identify and share best practices and financing strategies, will feed into the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in November.

- Not flaring is caring -

Countries agreed under the 2015 Paris Agreement to cap global warming at "well below" two degrees Celsius above average levels measured between 1850 and 1900 -- and 1.5C if possible.

"We must reduce methane emissions... dramatically in the near term to help buy us time while we also address CO2 emissions, to keep the goal of limiting temperature increases to below 1.5C within reach," said Tomas Carbonell of the US Environmental Protection Agency.

"There's a lot of good news when it comes to solutions for methane," said Carbonell, who also chairs the Global Methane Initiative, a public-private partnership co-hosting the forum.

"There are many cost-effective technologies that can abate, monitor and capture methane emissions for use as an energy source," he said.

Coal mines can for instance recover explosive-hazardous methane and sell it to natural gas pipelines.

Landfill sites can use methane to generate electricity.

And fixing leaking pipelines, valves and compressors can make a major difference, as can eliminating routine venting and flaring on oil rigs.

- 120 million tonnes in play -

The International Energy Agency (IEA) says there were around 120 million tonnes of methane emissions from the energy sector last year.

China, Russia and the United States top the list of countries that emit the most methane from fossil fuel operations, it said.

The agency meanwhile estimates that more than 75 percent of methane emissions from such operations, and 50 percent of emissions from coal, could be cut using existing technology.

And 35 percent of methane emissions from oil and gas could be avoided at no cost -- with the figure at 10 percent for coal, it said.

"Countries and companies can achieve near-zero methane emissions," IEA chief energy economist Tim Gould told the forum.

"We cannot rely on overall reductions in fossil fuel demand... to do the job for us. That will simply not deliver the quantity and speed of change that we need."

- Temperature, health impact -

To date, 157 countries have signed up to a global methane pledge aiming to reduce global emissions from human activity by at least 30 percent below 2020 levels by 2030.

If they manage, it "will lower the average temperature by 2050 by 0.2 degrees," Liguti said.

He acknowledged that "doesn't sound like a lot", but stressed that "it's critical" to the overall target.

"It has a real impact."

Maria Neira, head of the World Health Organization's environment, climate change and health department, said the climate crisis was also a public health crisis.

"It's a horrible figure: we have seven million premature deaths every year caused by exposure to air pollution -- plus the diseases, the suffering and the cost for health systems," she told AFP.

"When we talk about methane and reducing emissions, we are talking about how many cases of lung cancer and asthma we can prevent," she said.

"The moment people understand that this is about health, I think it will be unstoppable."