Rapid emissions cuts would reduce methane in the atmosphere by 90% in 30 years
The rapid increase in methane emissions into the atmosphere since 2006, with a significant increase since 2020, is causing concern among climate scientists, who believe that controlling these emissions is crucial to keeping global temperature rise below the 1.5°C threshold.
Fifteen scientists from leading universities, research institutes and government agencies in the United States, France, the Netherlands, Israel and Austria analyze extensive new data and raise the alarm in an editorial published July 30 in the journal Frontiers in Science.
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“The abrupt and rapid increase in methane growth rates in the early 2020s is likely largely due to the response of wetlands to warming, with fossil fuel use contributing additionally,” the authors write. However, there are many other sources: oil and gas fields, livestock ranching, and rice fields are among them.
While the focus in efforts to keep global temperature rise below 1.5°C has “rightly” been on carbon dioxide, the authors say, they also point out that methane is far more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2. However, methane molecules are much shorter-lived, lasting only up to a decade, while CO2 can remain in the soil for hundreds of years. These two factors also mean that rapidly reducing methane levels can be very effective in preventing rising temperatures.
“If all methane emissions were cut immediately, 90 percent of the accumulated methane would leave the atmosphere within 30 years. This would reduce global warming faster than focusing only on carbon dioxide,” writes The Guardian, citing the paper’s lead author, Drew Shindell of Duke University.
“Methane is the most powerful lever we can pull quickly to reduce warming between now and 2050,” Shindell said. “There are just such rapid responses if we want to reduce it. We’ve already seen the planet warm so much that we need to reduce methane if we want to avoid worse impacts. Reducing CO2 protects our grandchildren – reducing methane protects us now.”
Shindell and his co-authors add that “political will to curb methane has increased recently,” particularly following the release of the Global Methane Assessment (GMA) by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition in May 2021. The stark assessment—and the potential to effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions through stronger efforts to combat methane emissions—prompted the United States and European Union to launch the Global Methane Pledge, which 158 nations have now signed and which aims to reduce emissions by at least 30% below 2010 levels by 2030—even though experts warned of enforcement gaps on methane even before the Pledge was signed.
New technologies for monitoring methane emissions from the air can also help. Studies from Stanford University and others showed in 2021 that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was missing about half of the methane emissions produced in the U.S. because it only measured ground-based sources. New satellites that can track methane emissions from the air are changing the way regulators track them, Grist writes, and making it more likely that these new targets can be met.