myWhen it comes to the climate, good news is quite rare. The recent global assessment of methane, published on September 10 by 69 scientists from the Global Carbon Project consortium, is no exception to this rule, as it establishes that emissions of this gas have never been higher and that they continue to progress. Since 2020, we have observed an unprecedented increase in the concentration of methane in the atmosphere. In 2023, a record level was reached, 2.6 times higher than in the pre-industrial era.
The catastrophic effects of emissions of this simple molecule, the main component of natural gas from our boilers and stoves, are now well established: methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, has a warming capacity thirty times greater than that of carbon dioxide (CO).2) in a hundred years, is responsible for one third of the temperature increase we are currently seeing.
Published every four years, the consortium’s work establishes that one third of emissions are attributable to natural processes. Indeed, some methane is produced by microbial fermentation in stagnant waters such as marshes and vast expanses of wetlands in the tropics and at high latitudes. However, these environments, victims of global warming, see their emissions increase with rising temperatures, which further increases warming, in a truly vicious circle.
Check and repair leaks
The other two-thirds of emissions are directly attributable to human activities and also increased between 2000 and 2020. Methane, which is a fossil carbon fuel, is present in underground mines of fossil resources (coal, oil and gas) that continue to be exploited. It is also produced by microbial fermentation in the stomachs of ruminants and in our waste, emissions that have doubled in the last twenty years.
The good news is that it is possible to act on these man-made emissions. And the levers to curb them are known and not inaccessible. So, by considering only zero-cost measures, we can reduce our methane emissions by a quarter. And we can cut them by half using all current levers and technologies. This represents a reduction in warming of 0.2 to 0.5°C by 2100, or 10 to 25% of the target set by the Paris agreements.
A first possible solution concerns the degradation of our waste and waste water: the reduction in quantities must be accompanied by collection and controlled conversion into biogas fuel. A second path concerns the cultivation of rice, an important source of fermented methane, linked to the production of human food and on which we can act by favouring certain varieties and cultivation methods, which make it possible, for example, to limit the duration of immersion of plots.
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