Methane emissions to rise by 5-13% till 2030: Report

The Global Methane Assessment: 2030 Baseline Report which was launched at the Climate and Clean Air Ministerial Meeting at COP27, highlighted that Methane emissions are going to rise by 5-13% by 2030.

Key highlights of the Report:

• The report evaluated the baseline (a scenario of what would happen without efforts) such as the Global Methane Pledge.

• This also represents an estimated increase of 20-50 million tonnes of methane per year above current levels.
• Cutting methane emissions in the next decade should complement decarbonization efforts. This is mainly because removing carbon dioxide will also remove cooling aerosols.
• At CoP27, 150 nations joined the pledge, where India and China have not made the commitment yet.
• Around 95 percent of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) now include methane or will include it in revised versions.
• Methane levels in the atmosphere in 2021 reached a record high of 1908 parts per billion. This is 262 percent of the preindustrial era levels, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
• Agriculture, fossil fuels as well as solid waste, and wastewater are the three major sources of methane.
• Human activities release 350-390 million tonnes of methane annually.
• Emissions from the agriculture and fossil fuel energy sectors are around 120-140 million tonnes per year, roughly twice that of the waste sector.
• Emissions are projected to rise by about 11 million tonnes annually by 2030 under a business-as-usual scenario from the agriculture sector.

Methane Alert and Response System (MARS):

• MARS is a part of global efforts to slow climate change by tackling global warming gas.
• It will use state-of-the-art satellite data to identify significant emission events, notify relevant stakeholders, and support and track mitigation progress.
• MARS will integrate data from the rapidly expanding system of methane-detecting satellites to include lower-emitting area sources and more frequent detection.
• Data on coal, waste, livestock, and rice will be added gradually to MARS to support the Global Methane Pledge
  
  

Steps were taken to Curb Methane Emissions:

• COP 26 Pledges: At COP26 in Glasgow, over 100 countries signed an agreement to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030.
• The US President has announced the Global Methane Pledge, which is a US-EU-led effort to cut methane emissions by a third by the end of this decade.
• MethaneSAT: Controlling methane emissions will require further scrutiny of its sources. To this end, satellites that will track methane leakage such as MethaneSAT have been planned to launch.
• The International Energy Forum (IEF) launched the IEF Methane Initiative in June 2021 to develop a methane emissions measurement methodology.