Cut methane from fossil fuels to quickly tackle climate change, says UN

London (Quantum Commodity Intelligence) - Urgently tackling methane emissions from fossil fuels is one of the quickest and cheapest ways to tackle global warning, finds a report from the UN.

Alongside rotting waste and cattle, the fossil fuel industry is named as one of the main culprits in the record rise in 2020 of this type of greenhouse gas, which is 84 times more powerful in trapping heat than carbon dioxide over twenty years.

But, unlike long lingering carbon dioxide, methane breaks down in the atmosphere in about a decade.

Readily available measures could cut global annual emissions by around 180 million mt, around 22% to 23% of the total, by 2030, the report finds, adding the fossil fuel sector has the greatest potential to achieve the goal.

"Cutting methane is the strongest lever we have to slow climate change over the next 25 years and complements necessary efforts to reduce carbon dioxide,"  said Inger Andersen, the UN Environment Programme Executive Director. 

More than half of global methane emissions stem from human activities in three sectors: fossil fuels (35 per cent of human-caused emissions), waste (20 per cent) and agriculture (40 per cent).

In the fossil fuel sector, oil and gas extraction, processing and distribution account for 23 per cent, and coal mining accounts for 12 per cent of emissions.

But the report thinks there are easy pickings to reduce emissions from the oil and gas sector by 29 to 57 million mt a year, and from the coal sector by 12 to 25 million mt a year.

"Up to 80 per cent of oil and gas measures and up to 98 per cent of coal measures could be implemented at negative or low cost," the report states.

Most of the measures involve repairing leaking pipes and sites and capturing vented gas.