COP28 president urges nations to update NDCs to cover methane, other non-CO2 greenhouse gases

Countries should commit economy-wide Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) that cover all greenhouse gases, including methane, the President-Designate for 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Sultan Al Jaber said at a summit on methane and other greenhouse gases held on December 2, 2023.

This, he added, is crucial to keeping the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal within reach. Methane is over 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide (CO2) in its first 20 years of lifetime.  

“Methane and other non-CO2 gases are responsible for 50 per cent of global warming. This summit must send the most powerful signal to all parties to fastrack the elimination of all non-CO2 greenhouse gases,” Al Jaber said at the summit. 

The summit follows a joint statement by the United States and China on November 14, 2023. They agreed to develop and add their methane reduction actions or targets to their 2035 NDCs. 

“The US and China partnership was historic. To have the two biggest economies develop an economic-wide plan to reduce these potent gases is a big step,” said Al Jaber.

The summit also presented developments made in the Global Methane Pledge, an initiative launched at COP26 by the European Union and the US. It is a global goal to reduce the 2020 methane levels by 30 per cent by 2030. This is estimated to lower temperatures by at least 0.2°C by 2050.

So far, more than 150 countries have joined the pledge, with Angola, Kenya, Romania, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan joining in as its newest members. Over 50 countries have developed or are developing national methane action plans.

At the summit, Al Jaber noted that the United Arab Emirates committed to channelling $100 million to the World Bank’s Global Flaring and Methane Reduction Trust Fund (GGFR).

GGFR is a multi-donor trust fund composed of governments, oil companies, and multilateral organisations committed to ending routine gas flaring at oil production sites across the world.

The US has also raised funding. In April 2023, the US announced a methane finance sprint, a funding campaign to cut methane emissions in line with the Global Methane Pledge. It also aims to accelerate the phasedown of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) under the Kigali Amendment, which calls for a gradual reduction in the consumption and production of HFCs, synthetic gases known to have a global warming potential.

The goal was to raise $200 million. However, “the US, European Union, other governments, private and philanthropies mobilised $1 billion in new grant funding since COP27,” said John Kerry, United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate.

Kerry also highlighted that the country had just announced a final rule to sharply reduce methane and other harmful air pollutants from the oil and natural gas industry, which contributes over 60 per cent of the emissions from the energy sector.

The rules could prevent an estimated 58 million tonnes of methane emissions (equivalent to 1.5 billion metric tonnes of CO2) from 2024 to 2038.

By 2030, the expected reductions will amount to an equivalent of 130 million tonnes. That amounts to 2 per cent of the country’s annual emissions.

Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said China, as a developing country, is facing lots of challenges and risks in controlling methane and other non-CO2 gasses. He added they need to step up technical capabilities through international support. 

Methane is seen as a low-hanging fruit, as technology for bringing these gases under control is already available and viable. Billions of dollars in investment have been mobilised to plug orphaned wells, patch leaky pipes, and reclaim abandoned mines to cut methane emissions from the oil and gas sector. 

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