In four decades Climate negotiation, The world has been highly concentrated and focused on the richest climate warming gas: carbon dioxide.
This year, scientists urged attention to another powerful greenhouse gas—methane—as the planet’s best hope to avoid catastrophic disasters global warming.
Scientists warned in a report that in addition to cutting carbon dioxide emissions, countries must also “vigorously, rapidly and continuously reduce” methane emissions. Landmark report Depend on United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Released on Monday.
This request may cause panic in countries that choose natural gas as a clean alternative to carbon dioxide jetting coal. It may also pose challenges to agriculture and animal husbandry, especially cattle industry in countries where it is an important industry.
However, although both methane and carbon dioxide warm the atmosphere, the two greenhouse gases are not equal. A single CO2 molecule causes less warming than a methane molecule, but it exists in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, while methane disappears within 20 years.
Durwood Zaelke, a reviewer of the IPCC report and director of the Washington, DC Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, stated that the report “puts a lot of pressure on the world to strengthen control of methane.”
“Reducing methane is the biggest and fastest strategy to slow warming,” Zaelke said.
Due to emissions into the air since the mid-1800s, today’s global average temperature is already 1.1C higher than the pre-industrial average temperature. But the report says that if there is no pollution in the sky and part of the solar radiation is reflected back to space, the world will heat up by another 0.5 degrees Celsius.
As the world no longer uses fossil fuels and solves the problem of air pollution, these aerosols will disappear-the temperature may soar.
IPCC report summary author Maisa Rojas Corradi, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Chile, said that a rapid reduction in methane can “offset” this effect while also improving air quality.
According to United Nations data, on a global scale, methane emissions have accounted for about 30% of global warming since the industrial age.
But until now, the IPCC has not discussed the role of methane, aerosols and other short-term climate pollutants.
“The report draws attention to the direct benefits of significantly reducing methane, both from the perspective of atmospheric concentration and from the common benefit of improving air quality for human health,” said Jane Lubchenco, deputy director of climate and environment. White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Technology updates and recent studies indicate that methane emissions from oil and gas production, landfills, and livestock may be underestimated.
Mark Brownstein, senior vice president of energy for the Environmental Protection Fund, said the report sends a resounding signal to countries that produce and consume oil and gas that they need to incorporate “aggressive oil and gas methane reduction plans into their climate strategies.” .
He said that emissions from landfills and energy companies may be the easiest to solve. Large-scale agricultural methane is more difficult to deal with because there is no alternative technology for scaling up.
The European Union proposed a law this year that will force oil and gas companies to monitor and report methane emissions and repair any leaks.
The United States is expected to announce by September more stringent methane regulations than those issued by the Obama administration, and these regulations were subsequently revoked under the leadership of former President Donald Trump.
The United States and the European Union account for more than one-third of global natural gas consumption.
However, IPCC co-author Paulo Artaxo, an environmental physicist at the University of São Paulo, said that major economies such as Brazil and Russia that do not have strict regulations on oil and gas production or agriculture may also be high methane emitters.
“(Methane) leakage from natural gas and oil wells is very difficult to quantify,” he said. If countries don’t look for it, they won’t find it.
Some environmental groups and government officials have urged a global agreement on methane, such as the Montreal Protocol to address the problem of ozone depletion.
Almond Cohen, executive director of the Clean Air Working Group of the Boston-based climate technology organization, said such an agreement could start with methane from the oil and gas industry, which already has the technology to control these emissions.
“This is not rocket science. No foreign technology is needed here,” he said. “Then let’s start from there.”
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici, Andrea Januta and Jake Spring; Editing by Katy Daigle and Lisa Shumaker)
