As leaders at the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, thrash out how to rein in catastrophic levels of global warming, one of the most important deals is taking place on the sidelines.
The Global Methane Pledge — a collective commitment to cut emissions of the potent greenhouse gas 30% by 2030 — is signed by more than 80 countries so far, representing more than two-thirds of the global economy. It’s perhaps the biggest single thing governments can do to keep alive the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Methane traps more than 80 times the heat that the same amount of carbon dioxide does in its first two decades in the atmosphere. But it degrades rapidly, meaning that action taken now can have an almost-immediate cooling effect on the Earth’s temperature.