ECCC: The UK needs to be more motivated over methane

The Environment and Climate Change Committee has published its report, ‘Methane: keeping up momentum’, which calls for the UK not to lose sight of its responsibility in cutting methane emissions in the UK, whilst encouraging ambitions internationally. 

Reducing methane emissions is arguably the most import measure in terms of reducing global temperatures in the short-term, given that it only exists in the atmosphere for a dozen or so years, whereas CO2 will linger for a couple of thousand. Methane is also a considerably more damaging greenhouse gas, responsible for 30% of all global warming that has taken place since the industrial revolution.

Energy, agriculture and waste management are the three greatest sources of ‘man-made’ methane around the world and, in 2021, the Global Methane Pledge was launched to reduce emissions from these sectors by at least 30% by 2030. 158 countries are signed up to the pledge although, unfortunately, not India, China and Russia.

Since 2021 however methane levels have continued to rise. For the UK’s own part, significant progress prior to the Pledge has not been reflected in the progress made since. 

The Environment and Climate Change Committee launched an enquiry in March 2024, taking evidence from academics, representatives from the oil and gas, waste management and agriculture sectors, environmental advocacy groups, regulators and the previous Government.

The full report, which calls on the government to adopt the following strategies,   can be read here.

• 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 methane;
• 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, for example 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;

Baroness Sheehan, Chair of the Environment and Climate Change Committee, said: ‘In 2021 at the Glasgow COP, the UK helped launch the Global Methane Pledge, recognising methane’s potency as a greenhouse gas. Methane is eighty times more powerful than carbon dioxide and responsible for around thirty percent 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.”

‘Professor 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. Methane also contributes to the formation of ground-level ozone, a dangerous air pollutant, so reducing methane has the co-benefit of improving air quality as well.

‘Continued methane mitigation at home, but particularly leading on accelerated mitigation abroad, is therefore absolutely necessary.

‘No momentum can be lost.’