As climate diplomats from 200 countries gather for the annual United Nations climate negotiations beginning Monday, fast-rising global temperatures over the last year have reached 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. That's the very limit the 2015 Paris climate agreement pledged to avoid. This super heating is already driving devastating climate impacts around the world, and now risks setting off climate tipping points and self-amplifying warming in 28 natural systems, a new study from top scientists warns. It's a terrifying prospect because it could bring far more destructive temperatures by turning natural systems like the Arctic and Amazon into net-warming contributors.
Heading off such tipping points must be a key goal of climate policy. Reducing methane emissions alone can limit .3 degrees Celsius of temperature rise by 2050, three times more by mid-century than reducing just carbon dioxide, helping to stave off climate disaster even as we decarbonize.
But China, the world's largest methane emitter, has continually refused to put forward a methane reduction plan, despite promising to do so at the UN climate meeting in Glasgow three years ago. China should use the occasion of an upcoming summit on methane at the COP 29 meetings in Baku, Azerbaijan, to announce specific methane cuts, action that should also prompt additional methane reductions from other major emitters including Russia, India, and the United States.
Coal mines produce one-third of methane emissions from fossil fuels globally. Chinese mines alone emit three-quarters of all methane emissions from coal, with none of the other top emitters—the U.S., Russia, and Australia—emitting more than 5 percent. Only 25 coal mines release 10 percent of all coal methane emissions—but 23 of those are in China.
Last year, China pledged to include methane and nitrous oxide in its climate action plan, but not until 2035, allowing inaction for more than a decade during which time its emissions will continue to drive up temperatures and risk of climate destabilization. Even Beijing's newly announced efforts to capture methane would reduce methane emissions from China's mines by less than 10 percent. Only the closure of many large mines will cut methane adequately, but despite China announcing a slowdown in coal in the rate of coal growth, global coal use hit a record in 2023, with China producing fully half of the world's total.
As part of the voluntary Global Methane Pledge, 158 nations that emit half of methane emissions worldwide have pledged to reduce total methane by 30 percent by 2030, although most of these nations are not yet on course to meet this ambitious target. So far, however, the first, second, and fifth largest global methane emitters—China (16 percent), India (8 percent), and Russia (5 percent)—have all refused to make any methane commitments. Compelling action by these largest emitters is the single most important action that can be taken to limit near-term temperatures, since 10 nations account for 70 percent of global emissions, and it may require a mandatory methane treaty that has been championed by climate advocates like Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley.
Some Indian states like Uttar Pradesh have announced methane reduction programs, but the national government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi must do far more. Russia has become a climate scofflaw, refusing to clean up its notoriously leaky oil and gas operations that vent and flare fugitive emissions of methane. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine has closed most of the EU natural gas market to Russia, China has been acting as the buyer of first resort for Russia's high methane gas, and Chinese President Xi Jinping is negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin over a new natural gas pipeline from Russia. China should abandon this project, which will only lock in more global emissions from Russia's leaky gas system.
The U.S., the European Union, Brazil, and other top emitters must also lead the way. The Biden administration has made methane mitigation a top climate priority, putting in place new rules recently upheld by the Supreme Court that will cut methane by 80 percent from the regulated U.S. oil and gas sector. The U.S. is creating important guidelines to distinguish low methane producers and exporters from high-emitting competitors so consumers and importers can choose cleaner fuels. As the U.S. gas industry exports to EU grow to replace Russian gas, U.S. producers must drive emissions down to near zero since most methane emissions cuts can be accomplished at net zero cost due to additional gas recovery.
The EU, the world's largest importer of natural gas, has enacted new standards to reduce the methane levels of gas imports over the next half a decade. These actions and diplomatic efforts by the U.S. and EU have put pressure on major oil and gas producers around the world, including massive state-owned oil giants like Saudi Arabia's Aramco. More than 50 of these major companies, accounting for one quarter of global oil and gas methane emissions, pledged deep methane cuts at COP 28—including ending routine flaring by 2030,and near-zero upstream methane emissions.
Aggressive action on methane and other super pollutants is absolutely crucial over the next decade to preventing tipping points in natural systems like Arctic Sea, the Amazon's carbon cycle, permafrost, the Gulf Stream, Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and others. These natural systems are currently inhibiting temperatures increases, but once triggered by further warming they can become net warming contributors, making it tremendously difficult to reverse a steady march of devastatingly higher global temperatures.
Fossil fuels account for one-third of global methane emissions and must be the first line of action. Agriculture is a slightly larger source than fossil fuels, but new technologies to reduce methane from rice paddies, livestock, and other sources show strong promise. Brazil, the fourth largest methane emitter, will be hosting the COP 30 UN climate negotiations in 2025 where methane from agriculture will be a key topic, along with Amazon preservation. Landfills are roughly 15 percent, but these emissions can be cheaply captured to become syngas. And methane cuts must be combined with reductions in other climate super-pollutants—HFCs, nitrous oxide, black carbon soot, tropospheric ozone—to have the greatest chance of limiting temperatures and tipping points in natural systems.
China legitimately boasts that its large production of clean energy has lowered the costs of solar panels and lithium-ion batteries. But these advances will do little to prevent tipping points in natural systems if China's massive coal industry continues to spew record amounts of methane unabated. Beijing's current recalcitrance on methane cuts provides other major emitters like Russia with cover to continue their massive methane emissions.
Decarbonizing alone will not win the climate battle. Nor does the urgency of reducing methane change because of the election of Donald Trump. China, the U.S. and other major emitting nations must cut methane quickly over the next two decades or rising temperatures will unleash climate disaster like recent storms in the U.S. and Spain that will devastate nations around the world, including China and the U.S. itself.
Paul Bledsoe is a professorial lecturer at American University Center for Environmental Policy. He served on the White House Climate Change Task force under President Bill Clinton.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
English (US) ·