Latest study holds humans responsible for the rise in methane emissions over the last 20 years

The human race has always compromised with the environment on its road to development. In a recent revelation, a study claimed that methane emissions have reached alarming levels, with humans pumping around 670 million tonnes of methane into the atmosphere in just 20 years. Methane is a heat-trapping gas that triggers global warming, and according to the study, its proportion in the atmosphere is rapidly rising, resulting in climate change.

The study claimed that around 670 million tonnes of methane were released into the air in 2020, depicting a 12% rise compared to the year 2000. According to the study, human-caused emissions rose by 18% in the last two decades. While natural emissions, mostly from wetlands, inched up just 2% at the same time.

The study mentioned that currently, the methane levels in the air are nearly 2.6 higher than in pre-industrial times. “Methane is a climate menace that the world is ignoring. Methane has risen far more and much faster than carbon dioxide,” Rob Jackson, lead author of the study and head of the Global Carbon Project, said.

CO2, the biggest threat

Highlighting carbon dioxide still as the biggest threat, Jackson claimed that humans put 60 times more CO2 than methane through the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas, which lasts for thousands of years. Jackson further asserted that methane leaves the atmosphere in a decade, so it offers a tool to fight climate change. Because methane breaks down easily in comparison to other greenhouse gases like CO2, reducing its emissions could result in rapid improvements.

“It’s a very worrying paper, but not a big surprise unfortunately,” said climate scientist Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics, who wasn’t part of the research. He said for the world to keep warming to an agreed-upon limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, the world needs to cut carbon dioxide emissions nearly in half and methane emissions by more than one-third.

The study primarily focused on the source of the emission based on the location, and it found that every place other than Europe is contributing to the rise of human-caused methane emissions. With major parts of Asia, namely, China and India, contributing the most.

According to the study, methane emissions from coal mining, oil, and gas have jumped 33%, while landfill and waste increased by 20% and agriculture emissions rose 14% in the last two decades. Meanwhile, Jackson claimed that the biggest single human-connected source of emissions is cows.

However, Cornell University climate scientist Robert Howarth criticised the study for not sufficiently emphasising methane emissions from the boom in shale gas drilling, known as fracking. He said that the “boom began in 2005 and coincided with a sharp rise in methane emissions, including a spike of about 13 million tonnes (11.7 million metric tonnes) in the United States alone since then.”.

Jackson claimed that the growth in natural emissions can be credited to warmer temperatures that resulted in microbes spewing more gas. He called it disturbing because “we don’t have any way of reducing” those emissions.

Though Jackson’s data runs only through 2020, he said, “Global monitoring of methane levels in the air shows that we know that concentrations in the last four or five years rose faster than at any time in the instrument record. So that alone tells us that the global methane pledge is not having a substantive effect on methane emissions and concentrations.”

In 2021, countries promised to do something about methane, but it’s not working yet, Jackson said.

You might also be interested in – Children more likely to trust robots than humans: Study