If we act now, we can start getting it out of the atmosphere.
This
April, scientists observed a
record annual increase in methane levels in the atmosphere for
the second year in a row. It’s the largest increase since record-keeping began.
Methane
is a greenhouse gas that’s over 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide. It’s
a major contributor to global warming.
Man-made
sources of methane —from fossil fuels to factory farms and landfills — dominate
our atmosphere today. But about 40 percent of the methane now in the atmosphere
comes from natural sources like wetlands and melting permafrost.
Scientists
worry these natural sources of methane will grow rapidly as the world warms.
This is a serious threat. Scientists believe a major burst of methane released into the atmosphere 56 million years ago resulted in a mass extinction event. About half of the marine organisms that comprise the fossil record were wiped out.
At
last year’s UN climate summit in Scotland, the global community seemed to wake
up to the methane emergency:
Over 110 countries signed onto the non-binding Global Methane Pledge,
committing to reduce their man-made methane emissions by 30 percent by the end
of the decade. The United States was among them.
The
Global Methane Pledge has the potential to significantly reduce global
temperature increases. But it doesn’t address rising natural sources of
methane, and we’d still be on track to blow past the upper temperature limits
set by the Paris Climate Agreement.
There’s
a way forward, but it must start with a clear-eyed vision commensurate with the
urgency of the methane emergency we now face.
On
the policy front, we need to wean ourselves off fossil
fuels, rapidly scale up renewables, halt and reverse
deforestation, and expand regenerative agriculture.
We also need to get more countries to sign the Global Methane Pledge — and make
it binding.
But
some scientists also believe we can start removing methane from the atmosphere
now.
For
example, we may be able to use solar-powered convection
to pull large volumes of air into chimneys. If we line those
chimneys with substances like titanium dioxide, they could break down
greenhouse gasses, including methane, into water and carbon dioxide.
Carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere also needs to be limited and drawn down. But since it
traps less heat than methane, this sort of technology could slow warming while
we scale up other technologies to reduce and remove carbon dioxide emissions as
well.
Methane
removal technologies like this could potentially prevent between 0.4° and 1°
Celsius of warming by 2050 — which would have a huge positive impact globally.
That
would help us avoid the apocalyptic scenario outlined under the latest 2022 international climate
report, which forecast a jaw-dropping average 3.2°C rise in global
temperatures. Scaling up methane removal technology could also equip us to deal
with the possibility of a sudden increase of biogenic methane.
This
April, over a thousand scientists and academics recently engaged in civil disobedience,
risking arrest to tell us our current climate trajectory is suicidal.
We’ll
still need policy solutions to transition us off fossil fuel production and
other practices that damage our climate. But let’s empower the scientists to
start working on methane removal today. What’s needed now is the research and
development funding to get started.
By funding this research, we can get onto a different trajectory and restore atmospheric methane to safe levels. This Earth Day, that would be a significant step on the path toward restoring the climate.
Daphne Wysham
is the CEO of Methane
Action, a nonprofit with a mission to pursue the science and policy
advances needed, under careful global governance, to restore atmospheric
methane to safe levels. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.