New reports have emerged revealing that there has been an increase in the amount of methane emissions, raising serious concern regarding the COP26 Climate Change Conference. The conference saw participating countries agree to reduce methane emissions from human activities by 30% by 2030. The countries excluded, however are seen as the top emitters of the gas, that being China, Russia, Iran and India.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has since called for drastic intervention as the figure for methane emissions is said to be 70% higher than official figures released by government. The group additionally says that methane is responsible for around 30% of the increase in global temperatures since the industrial revolution. Despite dissipating faster than carbon dioxide (CO2), methane is much more powerful and damaging.
“Cutting methane emissions would have a rapid effect on limiting global warming,” comments the IEA.
IEA executive director, Faith Birol says that a vital part of those efforts in combatting the increase of emissions is transparency on the size and location of the emissions, which is why the massive underreporting revealed by our Global Methane Tracker is so alarming. But action regarding the issue is not a reason for the delay in action, this as the group says that major reductions can be achieved with known technologies and with tried and tested policies that have been proven to work effectively.
LSL News.