Super-warming methane gas is being tackled too slowly, UN says ahead of COP30

By Alison Withers

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Almost 90% of satellite-detected methane leaks flagged to governments and oil and gas companies are not being acknowledged, the UN said Wednesday ahead of the COP30 climate talks next month.

The International Methane Emissions Observatory, which integrates over 17 satellites to observe plumes, got a 12% response rate from 3,500 alerts from leaks detected across the oil and gas sector, the report said, marking limited progress from last year’s response rate when only 1% of alerts resulted in action to prevent them.

Although methane stays in the atmosphere for a shorter time than carbon dioxide, which is the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, it is much more effective at trapping heat. As a result, scientists consider cutting methane emissions to be the fastest way to tackle climate change in the near term.

More than 150 countries have signed a 2021 pledge to cut methane emissions by 30% this decade.

“Actions remain too slow,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme, which oversees the observatory’s Methane Alert and Response System that remotely detects leaks of the colourless gas.

“We are talking about tightening the screws in some cases,” Anderson said, referring to methane leaks from the oil and gas sector from venting and flaring. “We can’t ignore these rather easy wins.”

The report said it has documented 25 instances where a notification led to a large emissions event being fixed.

At the start of this month, investors representing over 4.5 trillion euros ($5.3 trillion) of assets urged the EU not to weaken its methane emissions law following concerns the European Union might relax the rules to facilitate increased U.S. LNG imports, as part of the bloc’s efforts to smooth trade tensions.

Methane leaks from the oil and gas sector offer the most potential for mitigation, the observatory says.

But it also plans to expand its detection work to include emissions from other major sources, including metallurgical coal for steel production, waste, and agriculture, Giulia Ferrini, the head of the observatory, said.

(Reporting by Ali Withers; editing by Barbara Lewis)