The Paris-based agency said failing to curb methane leaks from oil and gas projects was a “massive missed opportunity” to prevent losses and reduce emissions of the potent greenhouse gas.
| Photo Credit: AP

“Planet-heating methane released by the fossil fuel industry rose to near record highs in 2023 despite technology available to curb this pollution at virtually no cost,” the International Energy Agency said on March 13.

“Slashing emissions of methane — second only to carbon dioxide for its contribution to global warming — is essential to meeting international targets on climate change,” the IEA said.

The Paris-based agency said failing to curb methane leaks from oil and gas projects was a “massive missed opportunity” to prevent losses and reduce emissions of the potent greenhouse gas.

“Emissions of methane from fossil fuel operations remain unacceptably high… There is no reason for emissions to remain as high as they are,” IEA chief energy economist Tim Gould told reporters ahead of the release of the agency’s annual Global Methane Tracker report.

But he expressed hope that this year “could mark a turning point” — if countries and fossil fuel firms turn their pollution-cutting promises into concrete policies. Methane is responsible for around 30% of the global warming experienced today, according to the UN Environment Programme.

While some 40% of methane is released from natural sources, mainly wetlands, human activities are responsible for the rest. Agriculture is the main source — methane is burped out by livestock such as cows and sheep and emitted during rice cultivation.

That is followed by the energy sector where the methane leaks from energy infrastructure — such as gas pipelines — and from deliberate releases during maintenance.

“This fossil fuel methane pollution has risen three years in a row,” the IEA report said, adding that two thirds of the emissions were from just 10 countries — including China for its methane linked to coal, and the United States for gas, with Russia shortly behind.

Major leaks

Overall, the IEA said the production and burning of fossil fuels resulted in close to 120 million tonnes of methane emissions in 2023, a small rise compared with 2022 and close to the record high in 2019.

“Last year witnessed a surge in large-scale methane leaks,” it said, “including a well blowout in Kazakhstan that lasted more than 200 days.”

“Some 40% of the emissions recorded in 2023 “could have been avoided at no net cost” using tried and tested methods to prevent such leakages,” said IEA energy expert Christophe McGlade. “It still represents a massive missed opportunity,” he said.

Methane is far more powerful than CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere but relatively short-lived, making it a key target for countries wanting to slash emissions quickly and slow climate change.

More than 150 countries — including Azerbaijan, host of the next UN climate talks — have promised a 30 percent reduction by 2030. Oil and gas firms have meanwhile pledged to slash methane emissions by 2050.

“But these commitments were not backed up by detailed plans,” the IEA said, calling for concrete policies to turn the pledges into reality.

It said countries and companies have the power to slash methane emissions from fossil fuels in half by 2030, if they deliver on their promises.

International funding for climate resilience in developing countries slumped in 2021 despite increasingly ferocious impacts, the United Nations said Thursday, as Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned action was “stalling” even as the need to protect people increases.

Many developing economies least to blame for the greenhouse gases that stoke global warming are among the most exposed to the costly and destructive effects of worsening weather extremes and rising seas.

But in its latest annual assessment of climate preparedness funding, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) found that public finance to developing countries fell 15% to around $21 billion in 2021 — the most recent year for which figures are available.

Meanwhile, the overall annual funding that developing countries need to adapt to climate impacts this decade is projected to have increased to as much as $387 billion, UNEP said.

“Storms, fires, floods, drought and extreme temperatures are becoming more frequent and more ferocious, and they’re on course to get far worse,” Guterres said in a statement, adding that the need to protect people and nature was “more pressing than ever”.

“Yet, as needs rise, action is stalling,” he said.

World leaders meeting at this year’s climate talks in the United Arab Emirates will face a tough reckoning over financial solidarity between rich polluters and vulnerable nations, as a failure to cut planet-heating emissions threatens the Paris deal’s global warming limits.

“The world must urgently cut greenhouse gas emissions and increase adaptation efforts to protect vulnerable populations,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP, in the foreword to the Adaptation Gap report.

“Neither is happening.”

As the world warms, climate change impacts increase and so too do the costs of preparing for them.

Richer countries promised in 2009 to provide $100 billion a year to finance both adaptation and emissions cuts in developing countries by 2020.

But it only reached $83 billion that year, according to the most recent figures available from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Failure to meet the target on time has damaged trust in international climate negotiations.

“Developing countries stand ready, awaiting the necessary funds to safeguard their people against imminent climate disasters,” said Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy at campaign consortium Climate Action Network International.

“Without timely adaptation, we are setting the stage for unimaginable loss of lives and livelihoods caused by relentless floods, raging wildfires, and surging seas.”

UNEP said its analysis found that public financing for adaptation dropped to $21.3 billion in 2021, from $25.2 billion in 2020.

It said the fall set a “worrying precedent”, particularly because it came in a year that saw wealthy nations pledge at UN climate talks in Glasgow to double annual adaptation funding by 2025, from 2019 levels, to $40 billion.

Report co-author Paul Watkiss said it was too soon to discern a trend, although international circumstances remain “challenging”, going from the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021, to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the following year.

After a major update to its methods, UNEP said it now expects developing countries to need more funds to prepare for climate impacts, giving a range of between $215 billion to $387 billion per year this decade.

That is based on the difference between the costs of adaptation calculated using computer models and financing needs implied by countries’ published national climate plans, if they have them.

UNEP said this amounts to roughly one percent of gross domestic product in developing countries on average, but in the least developed countries and vulnerable small islands it is around 2 percent of GDP.

Even if wealthy governments meet their promise of doubling adaptation finance by 2025, the gap between available funding and needs would still be vast, UNEP said, proposing a range of additional sources of money.

These include international and private sector finance, and reforms proposed by developing countries of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to align with climate priorities.

Adaptation is a good investment, the report stressed, citing research that every billion spent on adaptation against coastal flooding leads to a $14 billion reduction in economic damages.

The failure to cut emissions is already causing intensifying climate impacts, slamming communities and causing growing losses and damages.

This led to an agreement at last year’s climate talks in Egypt for a new fund to help vulnerable nations.

Guterres said one stream of funding for this should come from a windfall tax on the fossil fuel industry.

“Fossil fuel barons and their enablers have helped create this mess; they must support those suffering as a result,” he said.