Jubilee Post News & Views
Dr. Seema Javed About one-third of the planet’s current global warming is attributable to human-caused methane emissions. Reducing these emissions is crucial to preventing worsening climate change and is the quickest and most economical strategy to limit global warming in the near future.According to the Methane Alert and Response System (MARS), which is a component of UNEP’s International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO) data, a sophisticated system that detects significant methane leaks has sent 1,200 notifications to governments and businesses over the past two years, but only 1% of notifications have been answered. This was revealed in the fourth edition of the International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO) report, “An Eye on Methane, Invisible but not unseen.”
Global average atmospheric abundance of methane from 1706.56 parts per billion in January 1990, reached a high of 1932.24 parts per billion (ppb) in November 2024.Global methane emissions must be reduced 40-45 per cent by 2030 to achieve cost-effective pathways that limit global warming to 1.5°C.
Yet the atmospheric concentrations of methane rising at record speed over the past 5 years. Atmospheric methane is the second biggest driver of anthropogenic global warming after carbon dioxide (CO2) and is over 80 times more powerful than CO2 in the near-term.
“To have any chance of getting global warming under control, methane emissions must come down, and come down fast,” said Inger Andersen, UNEP Executive Director. “We now have a proven system to identify major leaks so they can be quickly stopped – often with simple repairs. We are quite literally talking about screwing bolts tighter in some cases.
Through MARS notifications and engagement, in both Algeria and Nigeria the governments and oil and gas companies took action to plug the major methane leaks. In Algeria, where methane leaks occurred for several years, the project enabled the reduction of annual emissions eequivalent to the emissions caused by 500 000 cars. In Nigeria’s case, the six-month leak emitted methane equivalent to 400,000 cars being driven for a year and was able to be fixed in under two weeks by simply replacing faulty equipment.
IMEO has also launched the Eye on Methane data platform to spark further action. The platform delivers open, reliable and actionable global methane emissions data to drive impactful methane mitigation action by governments and companies, while providing transparent, reliable data to civil society and media.
IMEO is also stepping up its work on methane emissions from other sources with a new Steel Methane Programme. Methane emissions from metallurgical coal used in steel production represent on average 30 percent of steel’s near-term climate footprint. These emissions can be mitigated at roughly one per cent of the price of steel.
