Methane leakage has become the biggest threat to the climate on the planet, and the latest such event was caused by the leakage of Russian gas, which is supplied by a gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea.
Methane is the main component of natural gas. It can leak into the atmosphere from gas pipelines and wells, and agriculture and food waste are also the ‘culprits’ of its emissions into the atmosphere.
Scientists are increasingly showing that reducing methane emissions is key to limiting the planet’s warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels to avert the worst climate impacts.
For decades, the profession focused on carbon dioxide as the most dangerous greenhouse gas, but today policymakers are turning to methane as a threat. This is why at least 100 countries have signed a commitment to reduce methane emissions by 30 percent from 2020 to 2030.
Urgently, most urgently
Methane was largely ignored for decades, but scientists today know that as a greenhouse gas it is more dangerous in the short term, even though it remains in the atmosphere for ten years, while CO2 remains for centuries.
Scientists are comparing the warming effects of methane and carbon dioxide over the centuries, and in that time period methane has proven to be 28 times more harmful, and in the past 20 years even 80 times more harmful, according to a recent study.
This is important as the world is on track to exceed the goal set by the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius.
“If I knew we had 100 years to deal with the consequences of climate change, I would worry a lot less,” says Mike Berners-Lee, an expert on the carbon footprint, adding, “And if you knew what consequences await us in 2050, you would screamed because of methane emissions”.
Methane emissions are doubly concerning because the world today is closer than previously thought to a “tipping point” when global warming will become a self-perpetuating process.
A study published in September shows that phenomena such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet or Arctic permafrost are inevitable, and they trigger these ‘self-renewing’ processes of warming.
Where does it come from?
Three-fifths of the world’s methane emissions are the result of human activities, and the rest are natural sources, such as wetlands.
From human activities, two-thirds of methane is the result of animal husbandry and the use of fossil fuels, and a large part of the remaining third comes from waste decomposition and rice cultivation, according to data from the Climate and Clean Air Coalition.
Scientists have studied the data for the past decade and are shocked.
“Everywhere we looked, methane emissions turned out to be higher than the agencies were saying,” said Robert Jackson, one of the authors of a study published in February on the worrisome effects of methane.
“This applies to oil and gas fields, landfills and livestock farming,” says Jackson.
Scientists can accurately measure the level of methane in the atmosphere, but it is crucial for governments and experts who decide to reduce these emissions.
More harmful than coal?
Oil companies and nations advocate the use of gas as a “bridge” to a full transition to renewable energy sources, and their argument is this: burning natural gas emits half as much carbon per kilowatt as coal.
But that factor is canceled out by the outflow of gas from wells, pipelines, compressors and other infrastructure.
Methane leaks from these processes can “actually be more harmful to the climate than coal,” says Sam Abernethy, one of the authors of the study published in February.
Governments, including the US administration, are introducing obligations that oil and gas companies must detect and remediate these methane leaks, since studies have shown that it is precisely these leaks that cause huge problems in the industry.
The European Union recently backed a proposal to treat some natural gas-based projects as “green” in what is seen as a concession to the industry.
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