- We really need to talk about methane.
If you are following the public conversation
around climate change
then you know the focus has mostly been
on reducing CO2 emissions, which is urgent.
But if we wanna cool down the planet,
we should also be paying attention to methane emissions.
A new report from the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change, IPCC for short,
found that methane emissions
have made a huge contribution to climate change.
The report suggests that 30 to 50% of the current rise
in temperatures can be attributed to methane,
which as you might know is a short-lived gas
that comes from agriculture, cows,
leaks from the oil and gas industry.
zombie fires in the Arctic, and landfills.
Cutting methane emissions won't be the end-all solution,
but collective action could buy us some time
in keeping the average global temperature increases
below the 1.5 degrees Celsius mark,
compared to pre-industrial levels
because in some parts of the world
rising temperatures risk detonating a methane time bomb
of ancient greenhouse gas deposits.
And we definitely don't want that to happen.
So today I'll break down some of the IPCC report findings,
the threats methane poses, and solutions to underline why
we need to be talking about methane
as much as we're talking about CO2.
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According to the IPCC report,
methane has been calculated to have added
approximately 0.5 degrees Celsius to global warming.
Now the report found that human activity has resulted
in approximately 1.1 degrees Celsius of warming,
but where is all this methane coming from?
Well, about 30 to 40% of methane
is naturally produced from wetlands.
But as highlighted in the report,
the rest is now coming from human activities.
Things like raising cattle farms,
rice production, and landfills.
Then there's the methane produced from the production,
transportation, and use of fossil fuels,
which has seen a spike since the boom and fracking
across the U.S.
Now, methane wouldn't normally be of worry
since it doesn't last as long in the atmosphere as CO2 does.
Methane lasts approximately 12 years in the atmosphere
while CO2 can stay up there for centuries.
But humans have caused an excessive amount of methane
to be released into the air.
In 2019, it was reported that methane levels
reached their record high,
approximately two and a half times above what they were
in pre-industrial times.
Remember, our goal as a planet is to try to limit
the average global temperature change increase
to 1.5 degrees Celsius above a pre-industrial baseline.
Methane could actually heat up the planet
as much as CO2 does.
Basically over a 20 year period,
methane can be 84 times as powerful per unit of mass
as carbon dioxide,
so it has the muscle to be as threatening as CO2.
However, if we stop emitting additional methane
into the atmosphere
from what the earth already releases naturally,
then we can get emissions down
to the level they were back in the mid 1700s
before the Industrial Revolution started
pumping out greenhouse gases.
It's thought that cutting methane emissions by 40 to 45%
within the next decade could result
in reducing the global increase by 0.3 degrees by 2040.
But beyond reducing average global temperature,
cutting methane emissions would also go some way
towards reducing the production of ground level ozone,
which is a key ingredient in harmful smog.
According to the UN Environment Programme,
cutting annual emissions of methane by 45%
could prevent 255,000 premature deaths per year,
which are traced to air pollution problems.
Now remember that methane time bomb I mentioned before?
So, that's a reference to the greenhouse gas deposits
that have been trapped
in the Arctic permafrost for centuries.
According to new research and satellite imagery
of northern Siberia, heat waves started cracking limestone
that used to be trapped under permafrost
and releasing pockets of gas.
Until now, it seems like the released gas
has been safely sequestered out of the atmosphere,
but if we don't cut down on methane and CO2 emissions,
the ice melts,
the rest of the ancient trapped methane gas is released,
and the planet gets hotter,
which then means higher temperatures,
higher risk of wildfires, higher sea levels, more flooding,
all bad news.
It's a feedback loop we really need to avoid.
(sighs) This is when I say there is hope, though.
So, what are the solutions?
Well, it's tricky.
There are quick solutions
like fixing leaks in the gas industry,
which are easier to find thanks to new technology,
putting soil on top of urban landfills
to prevent crop waste fires, and cutting on food waste.
But these solutions need to come through infrastructure,
policy, and regulation.
So the real pressure is on government
and especially the oil and gas industry.
There needs to be more accountability
when it comes to monitoring and repairing leaks,
although ideally, there wouldn't be any leaks
since we need to be shifting
towards more renewable energy sources.
There also needs to be better policy
around monitoring methane levels and how we deal with them,
like creating a separate process for methane
along the lines of the Montreal Protocol,
which is what helped to successfully regulate
the ozone-depleting gases in the '80s.
The annual Antarctic ozone hole has been shrinking
by one to 3% per decade since 2000.
And although it isn't expected to close completely
until 2050, the shrinkage is in part due to the efficacy
of the Montreal Protocol.
We've also seen methane solutions work before.
In the U.S., efforts to collect gas from landfills
saw methane emissions go down by 40% between 1990 and 2016.
But then we got a different administration.
(dramatic music)
Now, when it comes to consumers,
there's not a lot we can do to help solve the methane issue.
One thing that will help, though,
is if we consume less animal products like dairy and meat.
For example, if we improve how livestock is fed
and adopt new diets with less animal products,
we can spare the planet up to 80 million metric tons
of methane a year.
So, just remember cutting CO2 emissions
should still be the priority,
but cutting methane emissions is just as urgent
and could help us keep the planet cool.
(dramatic music)