One hundred countries together without India, China and Russia emit less methane | Important | USA Edition

The European Union (EU) and the United States on Tuesday launched an alliance this decade to reduce methane emissions by 30% in COP26, which is one of the 100 countries in the global agreement against that powerful greenhouse gas known less than carbon dioxide. , But not China, India and Russia.

Achieving that goal will reduce global warming to 0.2 C by 2050 and prevent 200,000 premature deaths, hundreds of thousands of emergency hospital admissions due to asthma and the loss of 20 million tons of crops per year. .

“Methane emissions account for about 30% of global warming after the Industrial Revolution,” he said. Ursula van der Leyen, President of the European Commission (EC) for the initiative.

Methane (CH4) comes mainly from the land, livestock and energy sectors, and this is “undoubtedly the potential for mitigation,” said Van der Leyen at that event at the Climate Summit. COP26 was held in the British city of Glasgow these days.

“Half of the heat we experience” comes from methane emissions, US President Joe Biden said, describing one of the many greenhouse gases, such as nitrous oxide, tropospheric ozone, steam or fluorinated gases.

The US president recalled that when the initiative was announced last September, only the European Union and nine countries were involved, which now includes more than a hundred partners such as Colombia, Togo, Vietnam, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, Micronesia, Chile, Indonesia or Morocco. .

Although the three main emitters, Russia, India and China, are not dragged into the climate war, they represent 70% of the signatories to this emissions.

“What we do now and between 2030 will have a significant impact on whether or not we can fulfill our long-term obligations,” Biden said, believing a 30% reduction in sales could go “beyond” what is expected. The United States will try to reduce CH4 emissions from its agricultural sector and its gas pipelines.

Methane is “80 times more destructive than CO2 and is fully responsible for the 0.5 degrees Celsius of 1.1 C warming we have today,” explained John Kerry, the US special envoy for climate change.

The agreement seeks to not only reduce the amount of methane released into the atmosphere, but also to develop “better inventory methods for calculating methane emissions”, which explains why the data on the impact and origin of the gas are slightly dependent. Evidence is consulted.

Greenpeace, an environmental organization, regretted that the initiative “should be the beginning and not the end of the goal of reducing this powerful greenhouse gas, which has 28 times the warming energy of CO2”, and that the signatories did not refer to a “reduction.” Meat or promises to change people’s diet in this commitment. “

“All roads point to the need to remove fossil fuels from our energy system and to remove industrial meat and milk from our diet as soon as possible. This announcement avoids the need,” the statement said. COP26, Greenpeace representatives in Juan Pablo Osornio.