US, EU push for 30% methane cut to limit global warming

The US and the EU has made a pledge to cut global methane emissions by 30 percent within the next decade, in a series of steps against rapidly worsening climate change.

This pledge is a vital milestone against climate change as governments are rushing to achieve the warming limits in the Paris Climate Agreement. It comes at a time when the UN secretary general, António Guterres, warned of a “high risk of failure” at the vital UN climate talks.

Methane is a greenhouse gas, about 80 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Natural gas production and fracking, meat production and other forms of agriculture are among the sources that produces the gas.

The world is now about 1.2C hotter now than in pre-industrial times, according to the World Meteorological Organisation. If the US- EU pact is adopted globally, it would reduce global heating by 0.2C by the 2040s.