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I am a sustainable development consultant and I work with the bureau to develop business solutions that reduce people’s impact on the environment. Additionally, I am studying in the PhD program at the Higher School of Economics where I am learning how partnerships between different organizations make the economy more sustainable.
Perhaps of all the greenhouse gases, methane is the most ambiguous. For a long time, it was considered a blessing, as it is the main component of natural gas, which gives us energy and heat. Compared to coal, the advantages of gas are obvious: when burned, it does not pollute the sky or the air. And if we remember the Great Smog and the death of thousands of people in London in 1952, it becomes clear that the gradual transition of humanity from coal to gas literally saved many lives.
However, unfortunately, not all methane is equally useful. Reaching the atmosphere, it becomes harmful to the planet as a greenhouse gas – and the second most significant factor in climate change after carbon dioxide. Since the mid-20th century, the amount of methane in the atmosphere has doubled and continues to grow rapidly. To restrain the temperature rise on the planet, at last year’s UN climate summit, countries even declared a “hunt for methane.” My letter will tell you about how this hunt is going and why methane emissions are so dangerous.
NAVIGATION →
In the letter, there are over 27,000 characters, and it will take approximately 17 minutes to read.
The text is divided into five parts. The first will introduce you to methane and explain what features of this gas make it dangerous. The second will explain that methane is everywhere and has many natural sources. The third explains how human activity exacerbates the situation. The fourth describes why it is not just as simple as reducing methane emissions. Finally, the fifth attempts to answer the question of whether there are prospects for “hunting methane” after the invasion of Ukraine.
Part 1. What is methane – and why is it so bad?
In the fall of 2022, farmers in New Zealand protested. Tractors with signs such as “What kind of society is this that hinders food production?” and “The government hates farmers” drove through the streets of cities across the country. In total, about 50 such actions took place in New Zealand, with dozens of tractors participating in the largest one. And although there were fewer dissatisfied people than many expected, their anger became a significant factor in the country’s domestic politics. The cause of this anger was an initiative by local authorities that farmers jokingly called the “fart tax” or “burp tax”.
New Zealand is a country that was one of the first to take on the commitment to become carbon-neutral by 2050. An important part of their plan is the reform of agriculture. Along with five million New Zealanders, there are 10 million head of cattle, mostly cows, and 26 million sheep living in the island nation. And more than half of all greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand come from local farms. Cows, in particular, “work hard” by releasing methane into the atmosphere along with belching and intestinal gases. The New Zealand government has proposed imposing an additional tax on these emissions, which has literally angered farmers. “Farmers have been caring for this land for generations,” protested one striker named Dave McCormack at a protest in Wellington.
Protests by New Zealand farmers have taken place just a few months after the ambitious launch of a center to reduce methane emissions – an international organization with a budget of $340 million, aimed at helping countries around the world start to really tackle methane. This greenhouse gas is still much less recognizable than “popular” carbon dioxide, which is most often discussed in the context of the climate crisis. However, it is around methane that the hottest disputes are currently being held. What is the actual volume of its emissions? How to reduce them? And who should be responsible for this? Interestingly, over the past couple of decades, clear answers to all these questions have not appeared for humanity.
When representatives of 195 countries gathered in Kyoto in 1997 to fight global warming, they declared six gases as their enemies. The list includes not only carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), but also nitrogen oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, perfluorocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons. They are known worldwide as greenhouse gases because they create a kind of “greenhouse” around the planet when they accumulate in the atmosphere. It prevents solar radiation from reflecting off the surface of the Earth and going back into space, which causes a rise in global temperature and an increase in natural anomalies in different parts of the world. What worsens the situation is the fact that the volume of all six gases in the atmosphere continues to increase.
It was there, in Kyoto, that the international community made its first global attempt to slow down the process of climate change by joining forces. The countries agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5% and recorded their intention in the Kyoto Protocol. To incentivize emissions reductions, they decided to use quotas and market mechanisms: if a country reduces its emissions beyond its quota, it can sell that excess to others who exceeded their quota.
191 out of 195 countries on the planet, including Russia, pledged to comply with the Protocol, however not all of them fulfilled their commitments. In 2012, Dmitry Medvedev (then Russian Prime Minister) believed that the country did not receive significant commercial benefits from reducing emissions, after which Russia withdrew from the Protocol.
It seems that since the Kyoto Protocol, many associate greenhouse gases and global warming exclusively with CO2. Which is understandable: it makes up a large part of all greenhouse gases on the planet – up to 80%. However, there is not so much methane in the atmosphere (its share is estimated at 20% of the total emissions volume), but the greenhouse effect from it is noticeably stronger: 82 times higher than that of CO2 in the first 20 years after entering the atmosphere, and 30 times higher in the following hundred years.
Methane is a gas we encounter constantly; it forms the majority of natural gas. Methane is what our stoves burn, but the familiar gas odor is not inherent to it – it is added as an additive for us to be able to smell it, as methane itself has no odor or color. Methane is also produced during the decay of organic matter, such as overripe fruit. The source of the odor that accompanies the decay process is methane-producing microorganisms, which break down the organic matter and create methane. A similar process occurs in our stomachs during digestion (yes, like cows, we also produce this gas). Methane can be dangerous for humans – exceeding its permissible concentration in the air leads to poisoning. When it enters the bloodstream, it displaces oxygen and affects the nervous system. Problems with vision, memory loss, nausea, vomiting, facial flushing, and headaches can all occur due to methane poisoning. In addition, it is highly flammable – a spark is sufficient to ignite it.
The good news is that once methane molecules enter the atmosphere, they do not stay there forever. If a free radical (i.e. a particle with an open structure ready to build new bonds) comes into contact with the gas, after 20 chemical reactions it can oxidize into carbon dioxide and water. But there is also bad news – this property of methane does not really help us, because so much of it enters the atmosphere that it simply does not have time to oxidize. Methane emissions are usually measured in megatons (MT) – a unit of mass equal to one million tons.
Due to the specific characteristics of methane and its powerful influence on the climate in combination with its relatively short lifespan, it is believed that reducing emissions of this gas will help curb temperature rise faster than a similar reduction in CO2. “Reducing methane emissions is a key opportunity to slow down global warming before 2040. Otherwise, we will face an extraordinary situation,” said President of the Institute for Management and Sustainable Development and leading observer at MGIMO, Durwood Zelke. Limiting emissions by at least half will speed up the breakdown of methane as the gas molecule will have a better chance of encountering that very same free radical.
However, humanity is still far from reaching this goal – for example, in 2021, the concentration of methane in the atmosphere broke another record, and the rate of its increase became the highest in the entire history of observations of this gas since 1983. In addition, since the beginning of industrialization (i.e., since the late 19th – early 20th century), the amount of methane in the atmosphere has increased by 262%.
Part two. How lakes, swamps, and even termites release methane.
The presence of methane in the atmosphere is normal for planet Earth in and of itself. The question is the amount and the ecosystem’s ability to “digest” it. This gas arises, among other things, without any human involvement, but natural sources account for less than half of emissions – about 40%.
Methane appears everywhere in nature where there is organic matter: in the depths of the earth, in the ocean, in bodies of water, in soil – and even in insects and animals. The fact is that there is still no unified statistics on methane emissions in the world, as well as a methodology for their accounting, so the data varies. By the way, this is another problem of methane: humanity does not yet know how to accurately determine its volume in the atmosphere.
- Freshwater reservoirs are the most generous natural source of atmospheric methane. Gas dissolved in water and at the bottom of reservoirs rises to the surface – sometimes in the form of bubbles.
- Swamp. Everything works more or less the same way as in water bodies. Some scientists even believe that it is swamps that play a key role in the release of natural methane – after all, they are covered with a fatty layer of dead organic matter, under which there is no air, and this is an ideal environment for bacteria that produce methane.12% methane from natural sources45 million tons per year
- Earthly depths. Gas seeps into the atmosphere through the surface of the earth – through cracks and geothermal sources, erupting from large volcanoes or literally tearing apart the ground. This sometimes leaves enormous craters up to 250 meters in diameter and up to 30 meters deep – like this one on the Yamal Peninsula.
- Wild animals. Of course, wild animals also emit methane – for the same biological reasons as cows and humans do. Termites are the most active in this process as part of their digestion. These tiny insects, only a few millimeters long, account for 9 Mt per year and 2.5% of the total contribution of all wild animals combined (11 Mt and 3%).
- Oceans and permafrost. These are relatively small “farms” for the production of methane: oceans provide 1.6% (6 MT per year), while permafrost provides only about 0.3% (1 MT). But despite the small emissions, both of these sources are something like a delayed-action bomb. And the ticking of this bomb is getting louder with the rise in global temperatures. Primarily for Russia, two-thirds of whose territory is on permafrost.
The temperature of the earth’s crust in this zone hasn’t risen above zero for thousands of years, and the soil can freeze up to a depth of one kilometer. Not only geological methane is stored here (a significant portion of Russian industrial gas is extracted on permafrost territory), but also the remains of plants and animals that have accumulated over millions of years of glaciation.
As global temperatures rise, permafrost thawing accelerates. As organic matter thaws, it begins to rot and decompose, releasing methane into the atmosphere. This means that the more methane released by permafrost, the faster global temperatures rise, which in turn speeds up ground thawing and warming of the Arctic seas (as well as the formation of so-called methane lakes). In addition to “fresh” methane, permafrost preserves large reserves of ancient methane in a preserved form. This is why temperatures rise twice as fast in areas of permafrost as in other parts of the planet.
And there is another potential source of methane, about which there is currently no consensus in science. It is believed that trees and plants, especially in humid areas, make a significant contribution to methane in the atmosphere. However, this question is still open: scientists have not fully clarified the mechanism of methane release from plants.
Part three. How a person exacerbates the problem – and what does risk have to do with it.
Imagine a typical cow (like this one) standing on a sun-drenched meadow, slowly chewing on grass. As soon as the cow swallows the cud, the fermentation process begins in its body. The bacteria living in the animal’s digestive tract immediately get to work: they break down the cellulose eaten by the cow into 65% carbon dioxide, 27% methane, 7% nitrogen, and about 1% hydrogen. In a day, this cow will produce about 200 liters of methane – 140 grams.
Today, animal husbandry is the most powerful source of methane, for which humans are responsible. Ruminant animals used in agriculture (not only cows, but also sheep, goats, camels, pigs, and horses) emit nearly one-third of all anthropogenic methane emissions into the atmosphere each year (115 MT per year, or approximately 31%). Meanwhile, the meat industry continues to grow. Since the mid-20th century, it has increased by more than threefold, mainly due to countries with developed economies where people eat the most meat: the United States, Spain, Argentina, Germany, Portugal, and Brazil. Despite the fact that the number of vegetarians in the world, according to some estimates, has already reached one and a half billion people, the trend, apparently, will continue: the world’s population is growing, and most people still prefer to eat meat.
The second highest methane emissions come from oil and gas extraction and transportation (84 MT per year, or 22%). In this sector, all processes – extraction, processing and transportation – are equally accompanied by methane emissions. This means that leaks occur constantly: gas seeps through joints, valves, damages and wear and tear in pipes, as well as during transportation and through improperly closed mine workings.
The gas pipeline is the most common way to deliver gas to consumers. There are a total of 2261 pipelines in the world. Gazprom alone has pipelines extending almost 832 thousand kilometers throughout Russia – which is like going from Earth to the Moon and back. Leaks not only harm the planet, but also are economically unprofitable (since companies actually lose the goods they could sell), but it is difficult to fight them. After all, gas pipelines pass through difficult and hard-to-reach areas, such as deep taiga or the ocean floor. The volume of leaks is recorded in the company’s reports, but the International Energy Agency considers this data unreliable – according to its information, the situation is about 70% worse than presented in official documents.
Landfills make a significant contribution to climate change – each year, 68 MT of methane from global waste is released into the atmosphere, which is about 18% of anthropogenic emissions. Methane is a component of landfill gas – there, in landfills where piles of plastic and organic materials are dumped, everything is present to create it. Even if the landfill were to be closed right now, it would continue to produce methane for another 20 years.
The coal industry is the fourth most significant source of methane in the world, accounting for approximately 12% of the total annual emissions or 44 MT. Methane is emitted at various stages of the process, including during mining preparation, actual mining, and from exhausted mines. China is the global leader in atmospheric methane emissions from this source, accounting for half of the world’s emissions.
Finally, another significant source of methane is rice plantations (30 MT per year, or 8%). The global demand for rice, largely driven by Africa and Asia, where it is most consumed, is rapidly increasing. According to forecasts, the population of Asia is expected to grow from the current 4.7 billion to 5.3 billion by 2050, and Africa from 1.4 billion to 2.5 billion. This will lead to a 30% increase in demand for rice, predicts a study published in the scientific journal Nature Food. The more rice fields, the more methane: in soil planted with this crop, bacteria actively multiply, emitting gas. For example, rice fields in Vietnam already produce more methane (in terms of equivalent amounts of carbon dioxide) than all of the country’s transportation vehicles combined.
Part Four. How the world is solving the methane problem (and is it solving it)
The amount of methane on the planet continues to increase, primarily due to human activity. The main “suppliers” of this gas among countries are China (well ahead of everyone else with 56 MT per year), the United States (32 MT), India (30 MT) and Russia (24 MT).
The international community agreed on the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions overall within the framework of the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and its replacement, the Paris Agreement of 2015. In Paris, countries set a specific goal to limit the rise in average global temperature to within two degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial era (and, if possible, within 1.5 degrees Celsius). Russia also signed the Agreement, and it is still in effect today. However, after February 24, 2022, the issue of climate change, which was already difficult to solve, became even more entrenched.
But there are international initiatives specifically focused on methane. For example, in 2004, the Global Methane Initiative brought together countries responsible for 70% of this gas in the atmosphere, including Russia. The key decisions of the document were: to capture and use coal mine methane and produce biogas from organic waste.
For almost 20 years, this has been a rather vague agreement that was the only global document that somehow fixed countries’ “methane” intentions. Finally, in 2021, at the COP26 summit in Glasgow, the United States proposed a new document to the world – the Global Methane Pledge. It provides for much more specific goals: a 30% reduction in methane emissions by 2030 (compared to 2020) to reduce the rate of global warming by at least 0.2 degrees by 2050. The commitment was signed by 130 countries, but there are nuances to it.
First of all, the agreement itself is more an act of goodwill than a mandatory document, just like its predecessor, the Global Methane Initiative. In other words, the participating countries have promised something to each other, but if they still fail to take action, no one will hold them accountable.
Secondly, three of the four leading “suppliers” of methane – China, India, and Russia – have not yet signed the commitment. The fact is that the goals declared in the document (despite its declarativeness) are difficult to achieve – and sometimes it is not clear how to do this in a specific state without completely reshaping its economy. In addition, the sources of methane formation are so different that there is no universal recipe for working with them.
Take China, for example. The main causes of methane emissions in this country are coal mining (40%) and agriculture (42%), specifically livestock farming and rice cultivation. While the measures to reduce emissions from coal mining are obvious (at least the authorities claim that they are ready to take the necessary measures), how can agriculture be restructured? After all, China is the world’s largest producer of rice, and this crop is a staple of the national cuisine. To reduce methane emissions from rice fields, it is necessary to require farmers to implement new agricultural technologies everywhere, and this is very expensive. That is why China’s goals for methane reduction are currently very modest – to begin with, simply to understand how to accurately calculate all emissions.
A similar situation exists in India – the second largest country in terms of methane emissions into the atmosphere. Agricultural activities are the main source of atmospheric methane (61%) here. The primary culprits are livestock farming and rice cultivation, with India having the largest population of cattle in the world and a huge number of rice fields. Additionally, rice cultivation and livestock farming are typically carried out on small-scale farms that rely on them as their only source of income, making methane emissions not a luxury, but a survival necessity.
To reduce the amount of methane emissions, the government needs to require farmers to implement new technologies on their lands or impose levies like the New Zealand “fart tax”. However, the Indian authorities prefer not to quarrel with farmers: the state even buys rice from them at a fixed price, often exceeding the market price, and then sells the crop cheaper, at a loss. And in 2021, the ruling party was forced to roll back agricultural reforms in the face of farmer protests. So any ambitious plans to reduce methane emissions in India are currently so unattainable that they are not even attempted.
As for Russia, which is one of the four methane leaders in the world, 74% of its gas emissions come from the energy sector. It is not surprising, as Russia has hundreds of thousands of kilometers of gas and oil pipelines, a significant portion of which was built over 20 years ago. Leaks occur at every stage: methane seeps out of wells, through valves, pipes, and storage tanks.
The International Energy Agency claims that existing technologies can reduce methane emissions worldwide by 75% in just eight years. In turn, the Russian authorities insist that they are not idle – supposedly all emissions are being monitored and controlled. Since 2019, the Russian government has approved a strategy for socio-economic development with a low level of greenhouse gas emissions until 2050, which includes the implementation of technologies to reduce methane emissions.
- However, currently the reports that Russia provides to the world community are quite contradictory – for example, statistics for the same year of 2010 differed by six times, according to The Washington Post. And satellite data suggests that Russian reporting on methane emissions may be underestimated by half. Even the special representative of the Russian president on climate, Ruslan Edelgeriyev, indirectly confirmed this. In 2021, he acknowledged that Russia “does not have a complete picture of methane emissions.”
Out of the quartet of leading countries in methane emissions, only the United States is actively pursuing this direction. The States not only initiated the Global Methane Pledge, but also unveiled their own plan to reduce emissions by 30% by 2030. However, this document was released in November 2021. When, three months later, Russia invaded Ukraine, attention from the global community towards climate issues weakened, and countries had to rethink some of their green commitments.
Part five. What’s happening with Russian methane emissions
Russia has the largest natural gas reserves in the world, accounting for 26% (according to OPEC’s 2018 estimate). The oil and gas sector contributes 17% of the country’s GDP, and for many years Russia has been among the top five leaders in global gas exports – that was until February 24, 2022.
- Now the demand for the import of Russian hydrocarbons abroad has significantly decreased. In December 2022, a ban on the supply of Russian oil by sea came into force in the EU, and gas exports from Russia to Europe reached the lowest level in a century. According to the International Energy Agency, the decline in exports of Russian oil and gas to the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Europe (which includes most EU countries) amounted to 50% by the end of 2022. The United States and Great Britain refused to purchase Russian hydrocarbons.
Official statistics from Gazprom essentially confirm the conclusions of the IEA. The latest data was published on the company’s website on December 15, 2022: over the first two weeks of the month, gas exports plummeted by 60% compared to December 2021 (and production fell by 24%). These were the last data shared by Gazprom: since January, everything has been kept secret. But it’s obvious: without the ability to supply gas to almost all European countries, the company has lost its largest sales market. Russian authorities have announced plans to redirect gas to China, but so far it only compensates for one seventh of the volumes that Europe used to buy.
According to the Russian Energy Agency’s estimation, by 2030, pipeline gas exports to Europe will decline by 78%. “It’s practically impossible for gas production and exports in Russia to ever return to the level of 2021. The global demand for Russian gas will be significantly lower than expected before February 24th, for as far as the eye can see until the year 2060,” remarks Igor Bashmakov, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and head of the “Energy Efficiency Center – XXI Century,” as part of the UN climate change expert group. Russian gas is now “politically toxic” for a long time, he explains.
It is too early to judge how all of this will affect Russia’s methane emissions. Igor Bashmakov suggests that all greenhouse gas emissions, including methane, will decrease in parallel with the further decline of the Russian economy: “Electricity generation will decrease, industrial enterprises will produce less, and therefore emissions will decrease.”
But there is an alternative point of view. Researchers from the Center for Global Energy Policy at Columbia University (CGEP) believe that the methane problem in Russia will only worsen, and cite several reasons for this. Firstly, current buyers of Russian hydrocarbons are not as interested in reducing emissions as “Western partners” – which means they will not press Moscow on this issue. Secondly, sanctions and further deterioration of the situation in the Russian economy will limit the technical capabilities for controlling and reducing emissions. It is unlikely that after the invasion of Ukraine, the country will be concerned about implementing advanced experience in the field of climate change, the authors of the report summarize.
The expert of the International Center for Sustainable Energy Development under the auspices of UNESCO and CEO of “CarbonLab,” Mikhail Yulkin, explains in a conversation that both points of view actually make sense. On the one hand, undoubtedly, in previous volumes, Russian gas is not needed by the world, which means that emissions due to leaks should theoretically be reduced. However, on the other hand, the main source of anthropogenic methane emissions in Russia is not gas, but oil, as the by-product of this production is the so-called associated gas. And here it is already difficult to make specific forecasts, he admits.
Previously, Russia exported more than two-thirds of its extracted oil. If, as with gas, the world no longer needs Russian oil in such quantities, this will inevitably lead to a decrease in production, but whether the process will also result in a reduction in leaks is a big question, emphasizes Mikhail Yulkin. Against the backdrop of a decline in industrial production in Russia’s oil-producing sectors, companies’ revenues will continue to decline, and this, in his opinion, will lead to a reduction in employees and a decrease in the quality of service at facilities. Then the number of accidents, including oil and gas leaks, may even increase. If it is already difficult to count and control them now, it will become even more difficult.
Meanwhile, a number of experts in the West still hope that the “hunt for methane” will lead to the achievement of short-term climate goals, at least in the global oil and gas sector, which can be aided by new technological solutions and scientific developments. “Inaction regarding methane is not a technological or scientific problem, it is largely a political and organizational one,” emphasizes independent energy analyst Poppy Kalesi.
Yes, but against the backdrop of a political crisis in the world, this is not encouraging.
When discussing methane, it’s hard not to notice the paradox: a country with huge reserves of natural gas still has problems with gasification.
Being among the top three gas producers globally (and top five in methane emissions) does not help Russia meet the gas needs of its citizens. Many populated areas in the country still rely on wood or coal for heating, particularly in regions such as Altai, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Buryatia, Zabaykalsky Krai, Tyva, and beyond. Gasification problems even exist in areas where gas is extracted, such as the Krasnoyarsk Krai where there are many gas wells but only 8% of the region is gasified.
And there are no grounds to believe that now, when Gazprom’s export revenue has decreased, this situation will change radically. Rather the opposite. The domestic market was not a priority before, and its development was funded on a residual principle – now there will be no funds for it at all, as noted by Mikhail Yulkin.