The Environment and Climate Change Committee has published its report ‘Methane: keeping up momentum’, which calls for the UK to keep up momentum on cutting methane emissions at home, while using its scientific expertise to be more engaged in international leadership.
Methane is described as a powerful greenhouse gas (GHG), responsible for around 30% of global warming since the industrial revolution.
It is considered around 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2) over 20 years and around 30 times more potent over 100 years in its ability to trap heat in the atmosphere.
However, it is present in smaller concentrations and has a much shorter lifespan than CO2; methane remains in the atmosphere for approximately 12 years, whereas between 15–40% of CO2 emissions will remain in the atmosphere for up to 2,000 years, according to scientists.
Reducing methane emissions now can therefore have an important near-term cooling effect on global temperatures, according to the committee.
The Environment and Climate Change Committee launched an inquiry on methane in March 2024 to examine whether the UK is on track to achieve the target set out by the Global Methane Pledge, of which it is a signatory.
It also set about understanding the progress the UK has made in reducing domestic emissions of this particular gas across sectors including fuel supply, agriculture, and waste management.
Furthermore, it explored the UK’s methane emissions in an international context and what UK actions on reduction of the GHG will have greatest impact.
Key recommendations on methane
The committee is calling on the UK government to:
- Produce a methane action plan, setting out how it aims to meet its global commitment to reduce anthropogenic methane emissions, caused predominately by energy (oil and gas), agriculture and waste management;
- Identify the most cost-effective traditional and cutting-edge technological options in agriculture to mitigate methane and support farmers to adopt them;
- Demand greater transparency and accountability of the oil and gas industry’s commitments to end the routine venting and flaring of this particular gas;
- Ensure that the UK’s world-leading best practice in waste management is maintained and built upon, by reviewing requirements for anaerobic digestors and providing clarity to local authorities on food waste;
- Join up methane mitigation with other priorities, including sustainable farming and food security, e.g., through the Environmental Land Management schemes;
- Prioritise diplomatic actions that will have the greatest international impact and demonstrate international leadership, such as mobilising finance and sharing scientific expertise;
- Align policy and regulatory tools with international best practice, particularly with regard to enhanced measurement, monitoring, reporting and verification (MMRV) at smaller scales;
- Review the regulatory framework across sectors to ensure a consistent approach that prioritises methane mitigation and enhanced data collection by sector;
- Consider both the costs and benefits of action and the concomitant costs and benefits of inaction over the short, medium and long-term, including adaptation.
Chair’s comments
Chair of the Environment and Climate Change Committee, Baroness Sheehan said: “In 2021 at the Glasgow COP [Conference of the Parties], the UK helped launch the Global Methane Pledge, recognising methane’s potency as a greenhouse gas.
“Methane is 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide and responsible for around 30% of the global warming we see to date. But, here’s the gamechanger – it is much shorter-lived in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide so, rapidly decreasing emissions of methane can help cool the planet.
“Prof. Piers Forster, interim chair of the government’s advisory Climate Change Committee, stressed that rapidly reducing methane emissions alongside addressing carbon dioxide could reduce the current trajectory of global warming from 0.25C per decade to 0.1C per decade.
“With the globe expected to exceed the Paris 1.5°C temperature threshold in the very near future, every effort must be taken to buy time for carbon dioxide emissions to be reduced,” she added.
She added that continued methane mitigation at home, but particularly leading on accelerated mitigation abroad, is therefore absolutely necessary.
