In May 2021, the UN Environment Programme released a report titled “Global Methane Assessment: Benefits and Costs of Mitigating Methane Emissions.” It highlights the critical role that cutting methane emissions, including from the fossil fuel industry, plays in slowing the rate of global warming. There are multiple benefits to acting including: the rapid reduction of warming, which can help prevent dangerous climate tipping points; improved air quality that can save hundreds of thousands of lives; improved food security by preventing crop losses; and creating jobs through mitigation efforts while increasing productivity through reduced heat stress.

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Reducing human-caused methane emissions is one of the most cost-effective strategies to rapidly reduce the rate of warming and contribute significantly to global efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C. Available targeted methane measures, together with additional measures that contribute to priority development goals, can simultaneously reduce human-caused methane emissions by as much as 45 per cent, or 180 million tonnes a year (Mt/yr) by 2030. This will avoid nearly 0.3°C of global warming by the 2040s and complement all long-term climate change mitigation efforts. It would also, each year, prevent 255,000 premature deaths, 775,000 asthma-related hospital visits, 73 billion hours of lost labor from extreme heat, and 26 million tonnes of crop losses globally.

Findings in the assessment are the result of modelling that uses five state-of-the art global composition-climate models to evaluate changes in the Earth’s climate system and surface ozone concentrations from reductions in methane emissions. Results allow for rapid evaluation of impacts from methane emissions and the benefits from mitigation strategies to the climate and ground-level ozone formation and, air quality, public health, agricultural and other development benefits. The assessment results are also available in a web-based decision support tool that allows users to input different methane emissions reduction goals to calculate the multiple benefits at a national level.

The Opportunity

• More than half of global methane emissions stem from human activities in three sectors: fossil fuels (35 per cent of human-caused emissions), waste (20 percent) and agriculture (40 percent). In the fossil fuel sector, oil and gas extraction, processing and distribution account for 23 percent, and coal mining accounts for 12 percent of emissions. In the waste sector, landfills and wastewater make up about 20 percent of global anthropogenic emissions. In the agricultural sector, livestock emissions from manure and enteric fermentation represent roughly 32 percent, and rice cultivation 8 percent of global anthropogenic emissions.

• Currently available measures could reduce emissions from these major sectors by approximately 180 Mt/yr, or as much as 45 percent, by 2030. This is a cost-effective step required to achieve the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 1.5° C target. According to scenarios analyzed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global methane emissions must be reduced by between 40–45 percent by 2030 to achieve least cost-pathways that limit global warming to 1.5° C this century, alongside substantial simultaneous reductions of all climate forcers including carbon dioxide and short-lived climate pollutants.

• There are readily available targeted measures that can reduce 2030 methane emissions by 30 percent, around 120 Mt/yr. Nearly half of these technologies are available to the fossil fuel sector in which it is relatively easy to reduce methane at the point of emission and along production/transmission lines. There are also available targeted solutions in the waste and agricultural sectors. Current targeted solutions alone, however, are not enough to achieve 1.5° C consistent mitigation by 2030. To achieve that, additional measures must be deployed, which could reduce 2030 methane emissions by another 15 percent, about 60 Mt/yr. 

• Roughly 60 percent, around 75 Mt/yr, of available targeted measures have low mitigation costs, and just over 50 percent of those have negative costs – the measures pay for themselves quickly by saving money. Low-cost abatement potentials range from 60–80 percent of the total for oil and gas, from 55–98 percent for coal, and approximately 30–60 percent in the waste sector. The greatest potential for negative cost abatement is in the oil and gas subsector where captured methane adds to revenue instead of being released to the atmosphere.

• The mitigation potential in different sectors varies among countries and regions. The largest potential in Europe and India is in the waste sector; in China from coal production followed by livestock; in Africa from livestock followed by oil and gas; in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding China and India, it is coal and waste; in the Middle East, North America and Russia/Former Soviet Union it is from oil and gas; and in Latin America it is from the livestock subsector. A majority of these major abatement potentials can be achieved at low cost, less than US$ 600 per tonne of methane, especially in the waste sector and the coal subsector in most regions and for the oil and gas subsector in North America.

• Mitigation potential from all measures is expected to increase between 2030 and 2050, especially in the fossil fuel and waste sectors.

• The levels of methane mitigation needed to keep warming to 1.5° C will not be achieved by broader decarbonization strategies alone. The structural changes that support a transformation to a zero-carbon society found in broader strategies will only achieve about 30 percent of the methane reductions needed over the next 30 years. Focused strategies specifically targeting methane need to be implemented to achieve sufficient methane mitigation. At the same time, without relying on future massive-scale deployment of unproven carbon removal technologies, expansion of natural gas infrastructure and usage is incompatible with keeping warming to 1.5° C.

How to Reduce Methane Emissions

Trends in methane emissions need to be reversed to achieve a multitude of benefits by 2030. Targeted measures can be rapidly deployed to reduce methane emissions from the fossil fuel and waste sectors, with a majority at negative or low cost. The UNEP report identified the following measures:

• Oil, gas and coal: the fossil fuel sector has the greatest potential for targeted mitigation by 2030. Readily available targeted measures could reduce emissions from the oil and gas sector by 29–57 Mt/yr and from the coal sector by 12–25 Mt/yr. Up to 80 percent of oil and gas measures and up to 98 per cent of coal measures could be implemented at negative or low cost.

• Waste: existing targeted measures could reduce methane emissions from the waste sector by 29–36 Mt/yr by 2030. The greatest potential is in improved treatment and disposal of solid waste. As much as 60 percent of waste-sector targeted measures have either negative or low cost.

• Agriculture: existing targeted measures could reduce methane emissions from the agricultural sector by around 30 Mt/yr by 2030. Methane emissions from rice cultivation could be reduced by 6–9 Mt/yr. The targeted mitigation potentials from livestock are less consistent, ranging from 4–42 Mt/yr. Average cost estimates vary across the available analyses. Behavioral change measures and innovative policies are particularly important to prevent emissions from agriculture, given the limited potential to address the sector’s methane emissions through technological measures. Three behavioral changes, reducing food waste and loss, improving livestock management, and the adoption of healthy diets (vegetarian or with a lower meat and dairy content) could reduce methane emissions by 65–80 Mt/yr over the next few decades.

• Additional measures, which reduce methane emissions but do not primarily target methane, could substantially contribute to methane mitigation over the next few decades. Examples include decarbonization measures – such as a transition to renewable energy and economy-wide energy efficiency improvements. Various implementation levers exist. Emissions pricing, for example, can be an effective policy which could incentivize substantial methane mitigation and support the broad application of methane reduction measures. A rising global tax on methane emissions starting at around US$ 800 per tonne could, for instance, reduce methane emissions by as much as 75 percent by 2050.

• Incomplete knowledge and monitoring of emissions in some sectors limits the potential for technical mitigation innovation and strategic decision making to efficiently reduce methane emissions. While there is enough information to act now, addressing emissions at the scale and in the timeframe necessary to meet the 1.5° C target will require an improved understanding of methane emissions levels and sources. Continued and improved cooperation to create transparent and independently verifiable emissions data and mitigation analyses is needed. Such cooperative efforts would enable governments and other stakeholders to develop and assess methane emissions management policies and regulations, verify mitigation reporting and track emissions reductions.

• Greater regional and global coordination and governance of methane mitigation would support the achievement of the 2030 abatement levels identified here. While methane reductions are increasingly being addressed through local and national laws and under voluntary programs, there are few international political agreements with specific targets for methane. The Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) leads global efforts to drive high-level ambition, and strengthens national actions, polices, planning, and regulations around methane mitigation.

To read the full report “Global Methane Assessment: Benefits and Costs of Mitigating Methane Emissions,” click here.

Posted in Renewable Resources Report