A House of Lords committee has called on the Government to keep
up the momentum on cutting methane emissions at home, while using
its scientific expertise to be more engaged in international
leadership.
The Environment and Climate Change Committee's report
‘Methane: keep up the momentum' (published today)
recommends the Government produces a methane action plan, setting
out how it aims to meet its global commitment to reduce
anthropogenic methane emissions, caused predominately by energy
(oil and gas), agriculture and waste management.
Whilst acknowledging the reductions in methane emissions achieved
to date in the UK, and the need to balance economic
considerations of action and inaction, the committee is concerned
that the progress in the UK has slowed, even as global methane
concentrations continue to rise.
After hearing from fossil fuel and waste management experts,
farmers, academics, scientists and Ministers, the report also
calls on the government to:
- demand greater transparency and accountability in oil
and gas of industry commitments to end the routine
venting and flaring of methane;
- identify the most cost-effective traditional and cutting-edge
technological options in agriculture to mitigate
methane and support farmers to adopt them;
- ensure that the UK's world-leading best practice in
waste management is maintained and built upon;
- prioritise diplomatic actions that will have the greatest
international impact, demonstrate international leadership, and
align policy and regulatory tools with international best
practice;
- review the regulatory framework across sectors to ensure a
consistent approach that prioritises methane mitigation and
enhanced data collection by sector.
, Chair of the Environment
and Climate Change Committee, said;
“In 2021 at the Glasgow COP, the UK helped launch the Global
Methane Pledge, recognising methane's potency as a greenhouse
gas. Methane is eighty times more powerful than carbon dioxide
and responsible for around thirty percent of the global warming
we see to date. But, here's the gamechanger: it is much
shorter-lived in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide so, rapidly
decreasing emissions of methane can help cool the planet.
Professor Piers Forster, interim Chair of the Government's
advisory Climate Change Committee, stressed that rapidly reducing
methane emissions alongside addressing carbon dioxide could
reduce the current trajectory of global warming from 0.25C per
decade to 0.1C per decade.
With the globe expected to exceed the Paris 1.5°C temperature
threshold in the very near future, every effort must be taken to
buy time for carbon dioxide emissions to be reduced. Methane also
contributes to the formation of ground-level ozone, a dangerous
air pollutant, so reducing methane has the co-benefit of
improving air quality as well.
Continued methane mitigation at home, but particularly leading on
accelerated mitigation abroad, is therefore absolutely
necessary.
No momentum can be lost.”
Notes to editors
- Launched in March 2025, the inquiry on Methane was set up to
examine whether the UK is on track to achieve the target set out
by the Global Methane Pledge, of which it is a signatory, and to
understand the progress the UK has made in reducing domestic
methane emissions across sectors including fuel supply,
agriculture, and waste management.
It also explored the UK's methane emissions in an international
context and what UK actions on methane reduction will have
greatest impact.
- Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas. It is responsible for
around 30 per cent of global warming since the industrial
revolution. It is around 80 times more potentthan carbon dioxide
(CO₂) over 20 years and around 30 times more potent over 100
years in its ability to trap heat in the atmosphere.
However, it is present in smaller concentrations and has a much
shorter lifespan than CO₂: methane remains in the atmosphere for
approximately 12 years, whereas between 15–40 per cent of CO₂
emissions will remain in the atmosphere for up to 2,000 years.
