With Brazil among the signatories, an agreement to reduce methane emissions by 30% this decade was signed this Tuesday (2), the second day of the 26th United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP26). Proposed by the European Union (EU) and the United States, the pact was signed by more than one hundred countries – China, Russia and India were left out.
Meeting the target stipulated by the agreement would limit the temperature increase to 0.2 degrees Celsius by 2050 and prevent 200,000 early deaths, hundreds of thousands of emergency hospitalizations for asthma and the loss of 20 million tons of crops per year from agreement with the creators of the proposal.
“Around 30% of global warming since the Industrial Revolution is due to methane emissions, but it is one of the gases that we can reduce the fastest. And doing so will immediately mitigate climate change,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, at the launch of the initiative.
Methane (CH4) mainly comes from landfills, livestock and energy, and it is this latter area of activity that has “certainly the greatest potential for reduction,” said Von der Leyen at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland.
“About half of the heat we experience” comes from methane emissions, said US President Joe Biden, describing one of several greenhouse gases.
The American president recalled that when the initiative was announced in September, only the EU and nine countries joined it, which now surpasses the 100 mark, with the adhesion of Brazil, Colombia, Togo, Vietnam, Canada, Ecuador, Micronesia, Chile, Indonesia, Morocco, among others.
Despite the absence of the three main emitters that are dragging the longest in the fight against climate change, Russia, India and China, the signatory countries are responsible for around 70% of greenhouse gas emissions.
“What we do by 2030 will have a significant impact on whether or not we can meet our long-term commitments,” said Biden, who hoped to go “beyond” the expected 30% reduction in CH4 emissions, which the US will seek to reduce in the agricultural sector and its pipelines.
Methane is up to “80 times more destructive than CO2 and is totally responsible for 0.5 degrees of the 1.1°C warming we have today,” said John Kerry, US climate change envoy.
The pact aims not only to reduce the amount of methane released into the atmosphere, but also to develop “best available inventory methodologies to quantify methane emissions”, which explains that data on the impact and origin of methane vary slightly depending on the source consulted.
The president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, insisted in his speech on the importance of rich countries contributing to the financing of climate action in developing countries.
“As our beloved Pope Francis says, let us build together the globalization of solidarity so that what has so far triumphed does not triumph: the globalization of indifference,” said the Argentine president.
#Brazil #pact #emit #methane #brings #countries #China #Russia #India