Carbon dioxide (CO₂) expelled by man mainly due to the combustion of fossil fuels is the main cause of global warming which is affecting the planet in the form of increasingly intense and, in some cases, even more frequent extreme events. But there is another gas, methane (CH₄), which also plays a key role in this climate crisis and which is gaining increasing importance as a path opens up to try to avoid the most catastrophic rise in temperatures.
This gas is responsible for about a quarter of current global warming, which is about 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. It is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO₂, 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 several generations – methane degrades in about a decade. This implies that his cuts, if drastic, would have a much more rapid effect on climate change and could serve to prevent some barriers from being overcome that lead to some dangerous tipping points that will make this crisis even worse.
This is the philosophy surrounding an initiative that emerged at the Glasgow climate summit, which was held in the Scottish city in 2021, and which around 150 countries signed up to. This Monday, in the framework of the climate summit to be held in Belém (Brazil), the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) presented an assessment of the so-called Global Meater Commitment.
The report warns that emissions of this gas have not stopped increasing since the commitment was signed. But analyzing the plans that the countries participating in this initiative have on the table right now, which translate into regulations on the control of leaks in fossil fuel exploitation plants or in landfills, UNEP concludes that emissions of this gas could be reduced by 8% in 2030 compared to 2020 levels. This would be, according to the UN agency, “the largest and most sustained reduction in methane emissions in history”.
But this decline, the experts who prepared the study warn, is not what governments committed to at the Glasgow summit in 2021. The target was then set at a 30% reduction by 2030. “There is room for substantial further technical mitigation potential in this decade,” argue the authors of the report.
If the 30% reduction is achieved in 2030, warming by mid-century could be 0.2 degrees lower. If achieved, this temperature reduction would be crucial at a time when it is increasingly clear that the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement will not be reached in the next decade: that warming does not exceed 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
Inger Andersen, executive director of UNEP, emphasized 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.” “Reducing methane also reduces crop losses, which are essential for both agricultural productivity and food security,” he added.
This UN agency claims in its report that “solutions are available and cost-effective” and include sealing abandoned oil and gas wells, leak detection programs in these fuel extraction facilities or good waste separation and management. “Measures in the energy sector offer 72% of the total mitigation potential, followed by waste-related measures (18%) and agricultural measures (10%),” notes UNEP.
But, as in the fight against carbon dioxide emissions and climate change in general, the return of Donald Trump to the White House, who has put environmental agreements and measures to limit fossil fuels in the crosshairs of his attacks, also fills actions against methane with uncertainty. In fact, under Biden’s mandate, the USA was one of the promoters, together with the EU, of the commitment launched at the Glasgow summit.
Negotiations in Belém
The presentation of the balance sheet of the methane commitment coincided with the start of the second week of the Belém climate summit. Ministers from around 150 countries are expected to speak in plenary on Monday and Tuesday. And a topic that was not included in the official agenda of the summit is gaining ground in recent days: the need to establish a roadmap for the progressive abandonment of fossil fuels.
In the last three decades of negotiations and summits, the focus has been on greenhouse gas emissions, but not on the main causes: fossil fuels. At the Dubai summit, which was held in 2023, for the first time there was a direct mention of them at the end of the meeting, where they were asked to abandon oil, gas and coal. But the following year, at the Baku summit, no reference to these fuels was found.
At the Belém meeting, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva publicly supported the creation of this roadmap to “overcome dependence on fossil fuels.” This invitation has been welcomed with satisfaction by dozens of countries, who see a way to recover the mention of the main causes of the problem. Among these countries are Spain and the European Union, as explained on Monday from Belém by the Vice President and Minister of Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesen, who should play an important role in this summit having been designated as one of the facilitators of the negotiations by the Brazilian presidency of the summit.
At best, what would emerge from the Belém conference, according to the previous documents already circulating, is a mandate or a call to prepare this roadmap to be presented at the next COP. But just mentioning fossil fuels and the path to leaving them behind in the current geopolitical context would be a victory. This Monday, Geraldo Alckmin, vice president of Brazil, bet once again in front of the countries’ delegates on the “integrated action maps” for “accelerating the energy transition to eliminate dependence on fossil fuels”.
However, as happened in Dubai, strong opposition is likely to emerge from countries heavily dependent on oil and gas. The most visible face of this position in these meetings is Saudi Arabia, where the headquarters of the world’s largest state-owned oil company, Aramco, is located. Their argument usually revolves around one idea: climate change agreements should focus on reducing emissions and not cutting fuel consumption, a formula that has so far proven ineffective.
Agreements at these summits are made by consensus, which ultimately always results in a loss of ambition in the final results due to, among other things, pressure from petrostates. Aagesen, who defended the need for a just transition to abandon fossil fuels, chose to start talking about “electrostates” and not “petrostates”.
