Glasgow/New York, November 2 – The United States and the European Union are calling for a global pact to cut methane emissions by 30 per cent and have received backing from dozens of governments, a move that would help the climate summit in the Scottish city of Glasgow to move forward as it badly needs a breakthrough in climate action to revert global warming.
Methane is one of greenhouse gases that cause global warming and its impact is over 80 times stronger than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 20-year period. Scientists and environmentalists said cutting methane emissions could help the goal of slowing down global warming.
The US Environmental Protection Agency planned to issue strict rules limiting methane emissions from oil and natural gas production in the United States as part of President Joe Biden’s climate initiatives, it was announced in Washington.
Governments attending the climate summit have begun signing the Global Methane Pledge, which aims at cutting methane emissions to keep global temperature within 1.5 degrees Celsius. The pledge says participating countries agree to take “voluntary actions to contribute to a collective effort to reduce global methane emissions at least 30 per cent from 2020 levels to 2030, which could eliminate over 0.2 degree C warming by 2050.”
See climate summit’s schedule of meetings: https://unfccc.int/conference/glasgow-climate-change-conference-october-november-2021
The UN Environment Program, with support from the European Union, launched on October 31 an International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO) at the G20 summit in Rome for the purpose of driving action on reducing methane emissions. UNEP said methane emissions are responsible for at least a quarter of the current climate warming.
It said IMEO will “improve the reporting accuracy and public transparency of human-caused methane emissions. IMEO will initially focus on methane emissions from the fossil fuel sector, and then expand to other major emitting sectors like agriculture and waste.”
“As highlighted by IPCC, if the world is serious about avoiding the worst effects of climate change, we need to cut methane emissions from the fossil fuel industry. But this is not a get-out-of-jail free card: methane reductions must go hand in hand with actions to decarbonize the energy system to limit warming to 1.5°C, as called for in the Paris Agreement,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP.
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