This week at #COP26, I met with John Kerry, US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, to discuss the newly launched Global Methane Pledge.

The Pledge aims to catalyze global action and strengthen support for existing international methane emission reduction initiatives to advance technical and policy work that will serve to underpin Participants’ domestic actions.

Participants joining agree to take voluntary actions to contribute to a collective effort to reduce global methane emissions at least 30% from 2020 levels by 2030, which could eliminate over 0.2˚C warming by 2050. Participants also commit to moving towards using the highest tier IPCC good practice inventory methodologies, as well as working to continuously improve the accuracy, transparency, consistency, comparability, and completeness of national greenhouse gas inventory reporting under the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement, and to provide greater transparency in key sectors.

Methane is a powerful but short-lived climate pollutant that accounts for about half of the net rise in global average temperature since the pre-industrial era. Rapidly reducing methane emissions from energy, agriculture and waste can achieve near-term gains in our efforts in this decade for decisive action, and is regarded as the single most effective strategy to keep the goal of limiting warming to 1.5˚C within reach while yielding co-benefits – including improving public health and agricultural productivity.

With nearly 100 countries representing over 40% of global methane emissions and over two thirds of global GDP already on board, we are on our way to achieving the Pledge goal and preventing more than 8 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions from reaching the atmosphere annually by 2030.

#togetherforourplanet #ClimateChange #cop26glasgow

Click here to view the original source.