The carbon dioxide (CO₂) that humans expel due to burning fossil fuels is the main cause of global warming, which is hitting the planet in the form of extreme events of increasing intensity and, in some cases, also more frequent. But there is another gas, methane (CH₄), that also plays a major role in this climate crisis and that is becoming increasingly important as the way opens to try to avoid a more catastrophic rise in temperatures.
This gas is responsible for about a quarter of current global warming, which is about 1.2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. It is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but it decomposes much faster. While carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years – so today’s emissions are a guarantee of warming for generations – methane decomposes in about a decade. This implies that their cuts, if drastic, will have a much faster impact on climate change and could serve to prevent the crossing of some of the dangerous tipping points that would make this crisis worse.
This is the philosophy surrounding an initiative that emerged from the Glasgow Climate Summit held in the Scottish city in 2021, and was joined by about 150 countries. This Monday, within the framework of the climate summit in Belém (Brazil), the United Nations Environment Program presented the balance of the so-called Global Methane Commitment.
The report notes that emissions of this gas have not stopped increasing since the signing of that commitment. But when analyzing the plans on the table at this moment by the countries participating in this initiative, which translate into regulations on controlling leaks in fossil fuel exploitation or in landfills, the UNEP concludes that emissions of this gas could be reduced by 8% in 2030 compared to 2020 levels. This would be, according to this UN agency, “the largest and most sustainable reduction in methane emissions in history.”
But this reduction, warn the experts who prepared the study, is not what governments committed to at the Glasgow 2021 summit. The target was then set at a 30% reduction by 2030. The report’s authors stress that “there is scope for significant additional technical mitigation potential in this decade.”
If the 30% reduction is achieved in 2030, temperature rise could be 0.2 degrees lower by mid-century. If achieved, this drop in temperatures will be key at a time when it is becoming increasingly clear that the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement will fail in the next decade: that temperatures should not rise more than 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels.
Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, stressed in a statement that reducing methane emissions is “one of the most immediate and effective steps” that can be taken “to stop the climate crisis and protect human health.” “Methane reduction also reduces crop losses, which is essential for agricultural productivity and food security,” he added.
This United Nations agency confirms in its report that “solutions are available and profitable,” and include closing abandoned oil and gas wells, leak detection programs in fuel extraction facilities, or good waste separation and management. UNEP notes that “measures in the energy sector provide 72% of the total mitigation potential, followed by waste-related measures (18%) and those related to agriculture (10%).”
But as with the fight against carbon dioxide emissions and climate change more generally, the return to the White House of Donald Trump, who has put environmental agreements and measures to limit fossil fuels under his attack, also fills measures against methane with uncertainty. Indeed, under Biden’s term, the United States was one of the promoters, along with the European Union, of the commitment launched at the Glasgow Summit.
Negotiations in Belem
The presentation of the balance of commitment on methane gas coincided with the beginning of the second week of the Belem Climate Summit. Ministers from about 150 countries are scheduled to speak in plenary sessions on Monday and Tuesday. An issue that was not on the summit’s official agenda is gaining more ground in recent days: the need to develop a road map for phasing out fossil fuels.
During the past three decades of negotiations and summits the focus has been on global warming emissions, but not on the main cause: fossil fuels. At the 2023 Dubai Summit, it was mentioned directly for the first time at the conclusion of that meeting, in which it was asked to leave oil, gas and coal behind. But the following year, at the Baku summit, no reference to this type of fuel was found.
At the Belém meeting, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva publicly called for such a road map to “overcome dependence on fossil fuels.” This call was welcomed by dozens of countries that see a way to restore mention of the main causes of the problem again. Among these countries are Spain and the European Union, as Vice President and Minister of Environmental Transition, Sarah Agesen, explained on Monday from Belém, which is expected to play an important role during this summit after being appointed as one of the facilitators of the negotiations by the Brazilian presidency of the summit.
In the best-case scenario, from the Belem Conference, and according to previous documents that have already been distributed, what will emerge is a mandate or invitation to prepare this roadmap for submission to the next COP. But just mentioning fossil fuels and the path to leaving them behind in the current geopolitical context would already be a victory. On Monday, Geraldo Alckmin, Vice President of Brazil, bet once again, before the delegates of the countries, on “integrated action maps” in order to “accelerate the energy transition to eliminate dependence on fossil fuels.”
However, as happened in Dubai, fierce opposition is likely to emerge from countries that rely heavily on oil and gas. The most prominent facet of this position in these meetings is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where the headquarters of the largest state-owned oil company in the world, Aramco, is located. Their argument usually revolves around one idea: that climate change agreements should focus on reducing emissions rather than reducing fuel consumption, a formula that has so far proven ineffective.
The agreements at these summits are reached by consensus, which in the end always translates into a loss of ambition in the final results due to, among other things, pressure from petro-states. Aagesen, who has championed the need for a just transition to leave fossil fuels behind, chose to start talking about the “electric state” rather than the “oil state.”
About The Author
