Paris (France) (AFP) – Officials pushed Monday for faster action to reduce methane emissions from the fossil fuel sector to both help slow climate change and boost energy security as the Middle East war chokes off supply. Using its role as rotating chair of the Group of Seven industrialised powers, France convened government officials, industry leaders and experts to build momentum on cutting methane emissions ahead of the UN’s COP31 climate summit in November.
Methane, the second-biggest contributor to climate change, stays in the atmosphere for far less time than carbon dioxide, but its warming effect is roughly 80 times more potent over a 20-year period. French Ecological Transition Minister Monique Barbut said she hoped the Paris meeting would help to “accelerate the implementation of effective solutions to reduce methane emissions.” “Of course, action on methane is not a fight of any single actor, and nobody can win it alone,” Barbut said.
Barbut said the world remains “very far” from meeting a global pledge to cut methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030 compared with 2020 levels. Around 60 percent of methane emissions are linked to human actions. The fossil fuel sector — oil, gas, and coal — accounts for 35 percent of methane emissions from human activity, the International Energy Agency said in a report. “Yet there is still no sign that methane emissions from fossil fuel operations are falling, despite well-known and proven mitigation pathways,” according to the IEA’s Global Methane Tracker 2026. Such emissions from the sector — which come from leaks, flaring, and venting from oil and gas operations — remained “near record highs” in 2025, the report said.
Officials at the Paris conference said cutting leaks and flaring from the fossil fuel industry could increase the availability of energy while slashing planet-heating emissions. The energy crisis “certainly gives everyone another reason why they should act with alacrity,” the prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, told AFP. “The question is, can some of this (gas) be brought on stream in the short to medium term, certainly quicker than it would take to repair some of the production facilities that have been lost in the Middle East as a result of the war,” she added.
The European Union’s energy commissioner, Dan Jorgensen, also stressed that more gas could be put on the market if leaks were prevented. “This shows that methane abatement and energy security are not competing priorities,” Jorgensen told the conference. “Methane is the single fastest lever we have to limit near-term warming. We can no longer wait to pull this lever,” he added.
Oil prices have soared since the United States and Israel launched the war against Iran in late February and Tehran closed the Strait of Hormuz in response. The IEA said 20 percent, or around 110 billion cubic metres, of the world’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) flowed through the Strait of Hormuz last year. Nearly 100 billion cubic metres of natural gas could be made available annually through a global effort to cut methane from oil and gas operations, the IEA said. A further 100 billion cubic metres would be unlocked through the elimination of non-emergency flaring worldwide, it added.
“Reducing methane emissions remains one of the best things we can do to slow global warming while cleaning up our air, improving public health, and increasing our energy security,” British energy minister Ed Miliband said in a video message. France will continue pushing the issue for COP31 with “means of action” and “slightly new strategies,” a French ecological transition ministry official said on condition of anonymity, without providing details.
Agriculture is also a major emitter through the methane released by livestock during digestion as well as rice cultivation, where flooded fields create ideal conditions for methane-emitting bacteria. Landfills also emit methane. The UN Environment Programme announced that it was expanding its satellite-based global methane detection system to track emissions from coal mines and waste facilities for the first time.
© 2024 AFP
