Announced pledges would cut methane emissions by 50pc by 2030, according to a new report published today by the IEA. But in most cases detailed plans to achieve these pledges do not exist, and a 75pc cut would be required to be on track to reach net zero emissions by 2050 and limit global warming to 1.5°C, the agency said.
Emissions of the greenhouse gas (GHG) methane have contributed to 30pc of the rise in global temperatures since the beginning of the industrial revolution, according to the IEA. The energy sector is responsible for more than a third of methane emissions from human activities, behind agriculture as the biggest contributor, it said.
Countries and companies have made pledges to cut emissions of the gas. Roughly three-quarters of the world's countries are members of the Global Methane Pledge, a group created in 2021 at the UN Cop 26 climate summit in Glasgow that has promised to collectively cut emissions by 30pc by 2030, from 2020 levels.
Methane emissions from fossil fuel production and use totalled around 120mn t in 2023, roughly in line with annual emissions since 2019, according to the IEA's estimates. Around two-thirds of this came from the top 10 emitting countries. China emits by far the most from coal, while the US is the largest emitter from oil and gas, closely followed by Russia. But some smaller aggregate emitters including Turkmenistan and Venezuela have high emissions intensity, expressed in kg of methane emitted per GJ of energy.
Around 40pc of current methane emissions from the energy sector could be cut at no net cost, the IEA reiterated. This is because methane that is not leaked can be used as natural gas, offsetting extra costs for equipment or processes. And carbon pricing mechanisms with a price of roughly $20/t CO2e would make almost all methane abatement measures cost-effective.
A 75pc cut in methane emissions by 2030 would require spending about $170bn, the IEA said. Of this, $100bn would be for oil and gas, while the rest would be for the coal industry. These sums would represent less than 5pc of the fossil fuel industry's income in 2023, the agency said.
The gap between reported and measured methane emissions is still large, despite a rapid increase in satellite measuring capacity in recent years, the IEA said. Many countries and companies use a bottom-up approach — estimating total emissions by applying emissions factors to their activities — which may use out-of-date understanding of emissions and so underestimate them, the IEA said. But low reported emissions in countries such as Norway and the Netherlands have been confirmed by measurement, suggesting it is possible for producers to reach genuinely low emissions intensity, it added.
Large methane emissions events detected by satellites rose by 50pc in 2023 compared with the previous year. This rise was not because of an increase in monitoring, it represented an actual rise in emitting events, the IEA said. But improved surveillance in the coming years could contribute to any potential rise in the number of events recorded.
The fact that the upcoming UN Cop 29 climate summit in November is taking place in Azerbaijan, an oil- and gas-producing nation, will hopefully focus attention on the issue of methane emissions, said the IEA's chief economist Tim Gould. The IEA hopes that there will be further commitments to update nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to include methane emission reductions. Of roughly 190 existing NDCs, 35 have targets for overall methane emission reductions and 20 specifically cite measures to cut methane emissions from fossil fuels.
