PARIS, SEPT 10 – The concentration of the greenhouse gas, methane in the atmosphere is increasing at an alarming rate, thus undermining efforts by countries to meet their climate targets, researchers warned, today.
“Methane is increasing relatively faster than other major greenhouse gases and is now 2.6 times higher than in pre-industrial times,” said a group of international researchers under the auspices of the Global Carbon Project in a study published in Environmental Research Letters.
Methane is the second largest greenhouse gas produced by human activity after carbon dioxide, with agriculture, energy production and organic waste rotting in landfills being the main sources.
During the first 20 years, its effect on the atmosphere is about 80 times stronger than that of carbon dioxide, but it decomposes more quickly.
It opens up the possibility of dramatically reducing climate impacts in the short term, but researchers have found that despite efforts to reduce methane emissions, the concentration of the gas in the atmosphere continues to rise.
On average, 6.1 million tonnes of methane were added to the atmosphere each year in the 2000s. The amount increased to 20.9 million tons annually in the 2010s. It reached 41.8 million tons in 2020.
“Anthropogenic emissions continue to increase in almost every country in the world, except Europe and Australia, which show a slow downward trend,” said Executive Director of the Global Carbon Project, Pep Canadell, also one of the authors of the study, to AFP.
The biggest increase came from China and Southeast Asia, and it was mainly related to coal production, oil and gas production and landfills, according to the researchers.
The La Nina weather phenomenon has also caused an increase in methane from natural sources, according to the study.
The decrease in nitrogen oxide pollution in 2020 due to the decrease in transport during the COVID-19 pandemic has a paradoxical effect where it is an important element in preventing the accumulation of methane in the atmosphere. – AFP
