Can methane cuts pull us back from the brink of climate breakdown?

For two years, global temperatures have exceeded the 1.5C heating limit laid out in the Paris climate agreement. This overshooting will have “devastating consequences”, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, has warned. The biggest worry for scientists is that further heating could trigger irreversible tipping points, such as the widespread drying out and dying off of the Amazon, or the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, beyond which climate breakdown could spiral out of control. For the UN, and the world, minimising and, if possible, reversing that “overshoot” must now be the priority. But shifting the world’s energy systems to burn less fossil fuel is taking decades, time we no longer have to spare. Some scientists believe the answer lies elsewhere: with the powerful greenhouse gas, methane. “Cutting methane is the single most important strategy to slow near-term warming,” says Durwood Zaelke, the president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, and a longtime advocate of action on methane. “In fact, it’s the only strategy that has a chance of working. Cutting carbon dioxide is a marathon, but methane is a sprint.” Methane, the main component of the natural gas that is burned around the world for fuel, is produced by natural and human-made processes, including leaky oil and gas infrastructure, livestock, and the rotting of organic material. Once in the atmosphere, it is about 80 times more powerful in trapping heat than carbon dioxide, but has a shorter life, breaking down in about 20 years. Scientists estimate that methane alone has driven at least a third of the warming in recent years. New satellites and detection systems have revealed an unexpected truth: many countries have been massively underreporting their methane emissions, and the quantities of the gas being poured into the atmosphere have been climbing strongly, even while carbon dioxide output has been slowing. Cutting methane would give the planet essential breathing space, staving off the worst consequences of climate breakdown while the transition to a clean energy future gathers pace. Global temperature rises could be held down by about 0.3C in the next decade with a 40% cut in methane, or by as much as 0.5C by 2050 with further cuts. If the world is to minimise the overshoot of the threshold of 1.5C above preindustrial levels, action on methane is indispensable. “It’s the rocket in the pocket,” says Paul Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House climate adviser. “It’s effective and it’s cheap to reduce methane – two-thirds of the reductions needed from the energy sector could be done at zero net cost.” A paper published in October in the peer-review journal Science found that substantial cuts to methane could delay key tipping points: it could reduce the likelihood of the Amazon rainforest dying back by about 8%, and of disruption to the Indian monsoon by about 13%. The study also found that reducing methane paid for itself three times over – or six times over if health benefits were included. Cutting methane by a third by 2030 would be worth about $1tn a year for the global economy. Simon Dietz, a professor at the London School of Economics who cowrote the study, says: “The benefits of global methane action look so much larger than the costs that the economic case for action is clear. [It is] not only feasible but also economically compelling.” Related: Rich countries have lost enthusiasm for tackling climate crisis, says Cop30 chief Yet, action lags. More than 150 countries are bound to cut their methane levels from 2020 by 30% by 2030, under the global methane pledge signed at Cop26 in 2021. But China, India and Russia – all major producers – are missing, and the US under Donald Trump now looks unlikely to fulfil its part. There are moves in some key countries to control the gas. In a deal struck with the US under Joe Biden in 2023, China agreed to target its methane emissions. Whether this is followed through, now that Trump has taken the White House, will be a development to watch for from China at Cop30. The EU introduced new rules on methane last year, which not only require European companies to reduce their methane production, but also impose strict rules on the monitoring and reporting of methane associated with imports to the bloc. This means that gas imported from other countries must meet high standards, such as no routine venting and flaring. Svitlana Romanko, the founder and executive director of Razom We Stand, said: “By enforcing transparency and accountability across the gas supply chain, including imported gas, the regulation will expose the hidden climate costs of fossil gas and reveal the true environmental footprint of unaccountable suppliers like Russia. This empowers EU consumers and policymakers to make cleaner, more ethical choices – and accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels.” Countries wanting to reduce methane have plenty of easy, and sometimes profitable, measures to choose from. Capping off shale gas wells is low-cost and the technology well understood and widely implemented. Staunching the leaks from oil and gas platforms, pipelines and other infrastructure can save money, as the captured gas can be sold. Ending the wasteful practice of venting and flaring would be an easy win: it used to be routine, for safety, to stop methane building up and exploding, but long-established technology renders this almost always unnecessary. The best producers are 100 times more efficient than the average, and all could follow their example. Tommaso Franci, of the Amici della Terra campaign group, said: “Methane emissions across the supply chain are a key indicator of poor environmental and operational practices in the fossil fuel industry. Reducing methane emissions in the energy sector is the most effective and rapid way to cut greenhouse gases in the short term.” These are the positives – but the negatives are enormous. The US is one of the biggest international sources of methane, particularly from its thousands of shale gas fracking sites. Enforcing better practices on the industry would be cheap and easy, and would allay many of the social problems for people living near wells. With Trump in the White House, no enforcement is likely – new rules formulated under Biden have been suspended. Bledsoe believes the private sector will step up nevertheless. “They recognise that reducing these emissions is part of their licence to operate with the public,” he said. “And new detection technology will expose the laggards.” No such forces will be brought to bear on Russia, home to some of the biggest sources of methane from oil and gas installations. “We know they’re doing massive venting and flaring, and their infrastructure is leaky. But they do not provide any data,” said Bledsoe. Abandoned coalmines are another major source, according to a recent study by the International Energy Agency. China’s coalmines alone are responsible for about a tenth of global energy-related methane leaks. “It’s a double whammy: the CO2 from burning the coal, and the methane escaping,” said Bledsoe. Sabina Assan, senior analyst at the thinktank Ember, says: “The technologies to mitigate coalmine methane are already available. What we need now is for companies and governments to put these solutions to work and drive emissions down.” Zaelke wants countries to sign up to a global methane agreement that would mandate cuts and best practice throughout the global energy industry. Mia Mottley, the influential prime minister of Barbados, has also championed the idea. Zaelke says: “There are backsliders, so if we do not turn promises into binding litigation we will not slow warming in time.”. The chances of such an agreement being signed at Cop30 are slim, but many countries are at least increasingly open to discussions on methane, and recognise that the global methane pledge is not delivering fast enough. Most of the countries that have so far produced national plans on the climate – known as nationally determined contributions, or NDCs – have included measures dealing with the gas. While fixing leaky energy infrastructure offers the quickest, cheapest and most direct way to cut global methane emissions, agriculture, waste and livestock are responsible for about 40% of human-made methane and cannot be ignored. A report published last month by Foodrise, Friends of the Earth US, Greenpeace Nordic and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy found that 45 of the biggest meat and dairy companies around the world generated more than 1bn tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, surpassing those of Saudi Arabia. Yushu Xia, an assistant research professor at Columbia University, notes that there are ways to reduce methane from livestock and agriculture: for instance, improving water, fertiliser and soil management in rice production, as paddy fields are major sources; and better feeding and breeding practices for livestock, including feed additives and potentially gene editing for animals. “Better management of soils, animals, and crops that leads to lower emissions often provides additional ecosystem benefits such as improved soil health and reduced environmental pollution,” she adds. But diets will also have to change, away from the high consumption of red meat that is a serious health problem in the developed world. Kari Hamerschlag, the deputy director of food and agriculture at Friends of the Earth, says: “If governments are serious about meeting climate goals, they can no longer ignore the climate impact of industrial meat and dairy. Binding agricultural emissions targets, full supply-chain reporting, and support for a just transition toward agroecology and more plant-based food systems are essential.”