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Over 30 countries join EU-US initiative to reduce methane emissions
With their current climate targets and emissions, European companies are moving towards a global warming of 2.7 degrees by the end of the century.
Photo: DPA / Jens Buettner
Washington Ahead of the climate summit in Glasgow, several other countries joined the EU and US initiatives to reduce methane emissions. The agreement’s plan is to be officially presented at the climate conference.
Ahead of the COP26 climate summit, several other countries joined the EU and US initiatives to reduce methane emissions in the fight against climate change. 24 other states backed calls for reducing methane emissions by at least 30 percent compared to 2020 levels by 2030, announced US Climate Commissioner John Kerry in a virtual session on the subject on Monday.
Kerry said supporters include nine of the 20 states that emit the most climate-damaging gases. These represent 60 percent of the global economy and are responsible for about 30 percent of global methane emissions.
Specifically, Canada pledged to cut methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by at least three-quarters from 2012 to 2030, Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson announced Monday. It is the first country to adopt this target set by the International Energy Agency.
The US and other countries that have joined the EU draft include France, Germany, Japan and Israel. The Washington and Brussels initiative is to be presented officially at the UN climate conference COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, in November and culminate in an agreement. Argentina, Ghana, Indonesia, Iraq, Mexico and the UK have previously expressed their support.
According to a joint statement by the US and the European Union, successful implementation of the agreement will reduce global warming by at least 0.2 degrees by 2050. The greenhouse effect of methane is much stronger than that of carbon dioxide. It is mainly produced in agriculture, but is also rapidly released by the melting of permafrost soils during global warming.
In August, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that the global average temperature in 2030 would be 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels – a decade ahead of forecast three years ago.
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