Greenhouse gas: slow down the climate crisis with methane reduction?

Methane causes global warming much more than CO2. But it also means that the climate crisis could be slowed down with fewer emissions. Experts already have concrete ideas as to where and how methane can be saved.

The leaks in the Baltic Sea have highlighted the gas that is escaping: methane. About 90 percent of natural gas consists of this shortest hydrocarbon molecule – a carbon atom with four hydrogen atoms attached – CH4. It is the second most important climate gas and something like the turbo in the climate crisis, because its short-term effect is much more severe than that of CO2. And the concentration of methane in the atmosphere is increasing much faster than that of CO2. Beyond the current leak: where is all this coming from and what does it mean?

But methane could also be a lever in the fight against the climate crisis. The most important greenhouse gas is CO2 – it is produced when coal, oil and gas are burned and is responsible for two thirds of global warming. Methane, on the other hand, accounts for only 15-20 percent. But: Methane has an immediate and short-term effect about 85 times as strong as CO2 – but it is gone much faster on the other side. If CO2 is the tanker of climate protection, then methane is the speedboat. Small but agile. If you bring down methane emissions, you will do a lot of good for the climate very quickly.

Methane concentrations are rising rapidly

But the fact is: the concentration of methane in the atmosphere is increasing much faster than that of CO2. Today it is two and a half times higher than before industrialization. The CO2 concentration, on the other hand, has “only” increased by 50 percent. In the last two decades, the increase has accelerated again. The reason for this is not yet entirely clear. The thawing permafrost soil is often mentioned here, which is already contributing to increasing methane emissions or could contribute in the near future. However, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) considers this to be very unlikely.

The data is very vague. Around half of the methane comes from natural sources. First of all, these are wetlands. But even here, the emissions also depend on factors set by people: higher CO2 levels in the atmosphere or higher temperatures, for example. Definitely the other half is directly influenced by humans.

And here, again, around half is likely to come from agricultural sources: ruminants, such as cattle and sheep, and paddy cultivation are the most important. The other has to do with the development of fossil fuels. Coal and oil, but above all natural gas production and transport. However, the data is not really reliable.

High emissions from natural gas production

A sure sign: the official data from the states on methane emissions cannot even come close to explaining the much clearer increase in the concentration of this gas in the atmosphere. The International Energy Agency IEA comes to the conclusion that emissions from the energy sector in particular have clearly been underestimated to date. And there is a lot of scientific evidence for this.

Recent studies show that the losses of methane from the natural gas industry have been significantly underestimated so far. Natural gas consists almost entirely of methane. Measurements by the European Space Agency ESA using the Sentinel satellite system have shown that enormous amounts of natural gas are escaping at the gas drilling sites themselves and along the pipelines.

Reduction of 70 percent possible

In 2019 and 2020 alone, the satellites discovered 1,200 such leaks, from which methane escaped at least temporarily. And those are just the really big ones. Most of these emissions come from Russia, Turkmenistan, the USA, Iran, Kazakhstan and Algeria. These emissions could be reduced by a total of 70 percent, says the World Energy Agency IEA. This is technically feasible and even economically worthwhile – a powerful lever.

Huge emissions from pipeline leaks

The dimension of such leaks is made clear by the current case of the two Nord Stream pipelines. At least 350,000 tons of methane have been released there so far. The largest part is probably not oxidized but escaped into the atmosphere. Depending on how you calculate, this corresponds to 1.5 percent or around four percent of the annual greenhouse gas emissions in Germany.

The reason for the different information: all greenhouse gases are uniformly converted to the climate impact of CO2. As a rule, the impact on the climate over a period of 100 years is considered. Then methane will be around 25 times as strong as CO2. This is how you get the lower value. If, on the other hand, one estimates the short-term effect over the next two decades, then one comes to the conclusion that it has an effect 85 times as strong as CO2 and that changes the comparison. But the higher number is more realistic, because the next two decades will be crucial in the fight against the climate crisis.

More methane from fracking gas?

Attempts are often made to at least burn the escaping and excess methane from mining and drilling. This “only” produces CO2 – and that has a significantly less impact on the climate. However, a recent study shows that the assumptions made here were too optimistic.

According to this, about five times more methane is released at important oil and gas fields in the USA than previously assumed by industry and authorities. The team around Genevieve Plant from the University of Michigan has carried out measurement flights and examined the exhaust gases from more than 300 incendiary flares. The result: Much more methane is not burned at all or only partially burned than is calculated in the standard assumptions of the environmental authority.

The fracking gas boom in the USA and the production of liquid gas LNG from it coincides with a clearly measurable increase in the methane concentration in the atmosphere.

Temperature rise could be significantly reduced

Other sources of methane would also be relatively easy to eliminate: The gas also escapes in large quantities from landfills. In Europe and the USA these have to be covered and the gas captured. In the USA, for example, this has reduced emissions by 40 percent over the past 30 years. A simple cover would also be feasible for huge landfills in the Global South. But actually that doesn’t happen. And here they are too Emissions according to a new study 1.4 to 2.6 times higher than previously assumed.

At the climate conference in Glasgow last November, more than 100 countries signed the methane reduction plan jointly proposed by the EU and the USA. These are to be reduced by 30 percent by 2030 compared to 2020. That would reliably reduce the temperature rise by around 0.2 degrees. If all technical possibilities worldwide were used, the increase would even be reduced by half a degree.