TAG: GS 3: ECOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENT
THE CONTEXT: The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Global Methane Tracker 2024 reveals that methane emissions from fossil fuel use in 2023 were alarmingly high, nearing record levels at 120 million tonnes (Mt).
EXPLANATION:
- Despite minor fluctuations compared to 2022, the persistent emission of methane poses a significant challenge to global climate goals.
Top Emitters and Regional Trends:
- Of the total methane emissions, approximately 80 Mt were contributed by the top 10 emitter countries, with the United States and Russia leading the list.
- While certain regions show signs of emission reduction, the overall trend remains troubling, highlighting the inadequacy of current efforts to combat methane emissions effectively.
Impact and Consequences:
- Methane, responsible for about 30% of the rise in global temperatures since the preindustrial era, exacerbates climate change.
- The energy sector, comprising oil, natural gas, coal, and bioenergy, accounts for over one-third of human-induced methane emissions.
- The continued emission of methane jeopardizes efforts to limit global warming to 1.5°C, as outlined in the Paris Agreement.
Importance of Mitigation Efforts:
- The urgency to mitigate methane emissions is underscored by the need to achieve the Paris Agreement’s temperature goals.
- The IEA estimates that reducing methane emissions from fossil fuels by 75% by 2030 is imperative to meet these objectives.
- However, achieving this target requires concerted efforts and substantial investments, estimated at around $170 billion.
Cost-Effective Solutions:
- Despite the substantial investment required, cutting methane emissions is deemed achievable and cost-effective.
- The IEA suggests that nearly 40% of emissions from fossil fuels in 2023 could have been avoided at no net cost.
- Furthermore, implementing existing methane policies and pledges could potentially reduce methane emissions from fossil fuels by 50% by 2030.
Challenges and Limitations of Pledges:
- While pledges and initiatives such as the Oil and Gas Decarbonisation Charter demonstrate industry recognition of the issue, they face criticism for their lack of specificity and comprehensive approach.
- The focus on methane intensity targets, without considering absolute emission levels, raises concerns about the effectiveness of these initiatives in addressing the full scope of the problem.
Need for Action and Collaboration:
- The outcome of the Global Stocktake at COP28 emphasizes the imperative for countries to accelerate methane emission reductions.
- While voluntary pledges and industry initiatives are steps in the right direction, they must be complemented by robust regulatory frameworks and international collaboration to achieve meaningful and lasting reductions in methane emissions from fossil fuels.
Methane:
- Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas and short-lived climate pollutant (SLCP) primarily emitted by human activities.
- It has an atmospheric lifetime of around 12 years.
- Methane severely exacerbates climate change, but also has a number of indirect effects on human health, crop yields and the health of vegetation through its role as a precursor to the formation of tropospheric ozone.
- While it has a much shorter lifetime than carbon dioxide (CO2), methane is much more efficient at trapping radiation.
- Per unit of mass, methane has a warming effect 86 times stronger than CO2 over 20 years. Over a 100-year period methane is 28 times stronger.
- Methane’s relatively short atmospheric lifetime and its strong warming potential means that actions to reduce emissions can slow the rate of warming and provide many other societal and environmental benefits within a matter of decades.
- Maximum possible reductions in methane emissions are essential to limiting atmospheric warming to 1.5°C.