Syllabus Section: Environment and Ecology (GS Paper III)

Importance: UPSC Prelims and UPSC Mains

Why in News?

Recently, during ongoing UN COP26 climate conference in Glasgow the Global Methane Pledge has been launched.

About:

• The pledge was first announced in September by the US and EU.

• Over 90 countries have signed this pledge.

• It is an agreement to reduce global methane emissions.
• Aim: The aim of this agreement is to cut down methane emissions by up to 30 per cent from 2020 levels by the year 2030.
• According to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, methane accounts for about half of the 1.0 degrees Celsius net rise in global average temperature since the pre-industrial era.
• What is Methane?
  Methane is the second-most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, after carbon dioxide
• It is a component of natural gas. 
• According to the UN, 25 per cent of the warming is because of methane.
• The methane is held underground within the coal and is extracted by drilling into the coal seam and removing the groundwater.
• Human sources of methane:

• Landfills
• Oil and natural gas systems
• Agricultural activities, coal mining
• Wastewater treatment
• Certain industrial processes

• The oil and gas sectors are among the largest contributors to human sources of methane.

• According to NASA, human sources (also referred to as anthropogenic sources) of methane are responsible for 60 per cent of global methane emissions.

Why dealing with methane important for climate change?

• Though methane has a much shorter atmospheric lifetime (12 years as compared to centuries for CO2), but it is a much more potent greenhouse gas simply because it absorbs more energy while it is in the atmosphere.
• Methane is a powerful pollutant and has a global warming potential that is 80 times greater than carbon dioxide, about 20 years after it has been released into the atmosphere.

Source: Indian Express