Explainer | As methane takes centre stage, how will China, the largest emitter of greenhouse gas globally, reduce emissions?
- Beijing has not signed up to the Global Methane Pledge, a multi-country initiative first launched by the US and the European Union last year
- Xie Zhenhua, China’s top climate diplomat, told COP27 that Beijing had drafted its own methane strategy to control emissions in the energy, agriculture and waste treatment sectors
Methane, the world’s second-biggest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide, has been elevated to the top of international agenda as the climate crisis gets worse every year.
The focus on methane is significant because even though it has a shorter atmospheric lifetime – roughly a decade as compared to carbon dioxide’s 300 to 1,000 years – it has a stronger influence on the climate. Over a 20-year period, methane can warm the atmosphere 80 times more powerfully than carbon dioxide, according to scientific journal Nature. Reducing methane emissions could not only help reduce near-term global warming, but also help to improve air quality, as it is a major source of ground-level ozone pollution.
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According to the IEA, the largest source of global anthropogenic methane emissions, or those linked to human activity, is agriculture, which is responsible for around a quarter of the total. It is closely followed by the energy sector, which includes emissions from coal, oil, natural gas and biofuels. Additionally, transport and landfills also produce large amounts of methane.