It seems a political age ago now, but back in 2021, at the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, I was standing in a pavilion proclaiming a global effort to tackle methane emissions, with more than 100 countries, representing more than 50% of global emissions, signing up to a pact to take action.
Most general talk about the climate emergency is about carbon dioxide, but methane is a potent greenhouse gas, 80 times more powerful than CO2 over short timescales – the crucial period of the next decade.
We can already see, approaching 1.5 degrees of warming above pre-industrial levels, a world on fire, a world in which people – particularly those who’ve done little to contribute to the climate emergency – are suffering, and dying – and methane action can produce immediate reductions in the rate of this global heating.
Yet, while the UK was a signatory to the Global Methane Pledge – Prime Minister Boris Johnson (you might remember him a few PMs back) expressing enthusiastic support – by which it committed to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030, we are only on track for a 19% reduction.
And the government does not even need to do the work itself, for the Green Alliance has this week set out a plan to tackle UK methane emissions, seeking particularly, in light of the government’s current disinclination to invest in even essential poverty-reduction and climate measures, to highlight low-cost, and cost-positive, actions.
Methane from farming
Agriculture is now responsible for 55% of our methane emissions. That’s cows, primarily, and also sheep, ruminating, digesting feed in ways that produce methane. There is also significant production from liquid manure in slurry tanks, associated especially with large-scale factory farming. These releases also have a significant impact on human health through air pollution.
There is one obvious way to cut methane from cattle, which is to have fewer cows. That would have particular benefits if the reduction was concentrated in the reduction of giant-scale factory farms, and in the ending of any expansion of such businesses, which are disastrous for animal welfare and the environment, as well as being a massive waste of food.
As the Green Alliance report sets out, reducing consumption of meat – building on a trend already evident – would also be positive for public health. It could be balanced by increased consumption of plant-based protein, particularly beans. This would help improve our health, and also, through leguminous growth, be good for soils. The alliance calculates that a 17% reduction in consumption of processed meat and dairy would see agricultural methane emissions cut by 9% and the UK’s overall emissions by 5%, with positive health benefits.
Methane from industry
Another significant contributor to methane releases is oil and gas installations producing so-called ‘fugitive methane’. Though overall production is declining, methane emissions from these installations are certainly under-documented and recorded. Back in 2023, I even got the former Tory government to acknowledge more needed to be done about methane from oil and gas production in the UK, but we are hearing nothing on this from the Labour government. Yet if the industry captured the gas, it could also sell it, ameliorating the impacts of the cost of preventative measures.
A further focus is on UK landfill gas, which produced 3TWh (terawatt-hours) of electricity in 2023, reliably meeting about 1% of total demand, enough to charge every electric vehicle in the country today. This production relies on the rotting of organic materials in the landfill, and is expected to decrease as more is directed to other waste streams, but will continue to be generated for many years. Yet a renewable energy subsidy is expected to run out in 2027, and that means generation could stop overnight, leaving the gas to be leaked into the atmosphere. As well as the climate implications, that would have noxious impacts on air quality for nearby residents, and wider negative health effects, too.
The Lords committee – the urgent need for a plan
So there are many obvious steps we can take to reduce methane emissions, and win-wins for public health as well as climate action, realities that were also highlighted this week as the House of Lords debated a report from its environment and climate change committee, titled ‘Methane: Keep Up the Momentum’.
You can hear the patience needed from its chair, Lib Dem Baroness Sheehan, as she noted that this had been “the longest-debated report to be produced by any House of Lords committee”, a product of “the divergent views of the committee”. (The committee has four Tory, four Labour, two Lib Dem and three crossbench members – no there’s never been a Green on a select committee in the Lords, though not for want of trying.)
Nonetheless, agreement was reached on the report. As Baroness Sheehan said:
“Rapidly reducing methane emissions alongside addressing carbon dioxide could reduce the current trajectory of global warming from 0.25 degrees Celsius per decade to 0.1 degrees Celsius per decade, and that is a goal worth achieving”.
Baroness Sheehan called for a methane action plan, as did the Green Alliance. But the minister speaking for the government in the debate, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, disappointingly, if unsurprisingly, repeated the government line that it believes “that this is covered in our existing delivery plan for carbon budgets”. Others, very clearly, can see that is not the case, and a methane plan is urgently needed.
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