Australia to cut methane by 30% by 2030

 From The Guardian

The Albanese government has confirmed it will join Joe Biden’s global pledge to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030, as the prime minister warned climate change is increasing the frequency of Australia’s extreme weather events.

Guardian Australia revealed in June that Labor was considering signing the pledge, and the climate change minister Chris Bowen confirmed on Sunday Australia would be joining more than 100 other countries by making the commitment in the run-up to United Nations-led climate talks in Egypt next month.

Signatories to the global pledge agree to undertake voluntary actions in their countries to reduce emissions of methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas. Reducing methane emissions by 30% from 2020 levels is a global goal, not a national target.

Labor has earmarked $3bn from the government’s $15bn national reconstruction fund to support agricultural methane reduction and other clean tech initiatives. A further $8m has been allocated to the seaweed industry to support the commercialisation of the feed supplement asparagopsis, and Labor will direct another $5m in Tuesday’s budget towards identifying and commercialising alternatives.

Australia considered signing the methane pledge in the run-up to last year’s climate summit in Glasgow, because the Morrison government was lobbied by the Biden administration to make the commitment. But Australia refused at that time because the National party would not support methane cuts.

With multiple flooding events continuing to cause havoc in the eastern states, Albanese warned on Sunday the current disaster would continue to play out for weeks. The prime minister said Tuesday night’s budget would establish disaster-ready funding “to get ahead of these issues” with better mitigation planning.

He said the link between climate change and extreme weather was clear. “We need to recognise that climate change is having an impact,” Albanese said.

“We’re seeing more frequent events and they’re more intense when they occur.”

The UN’s climate assessment says methane has caused about 0.5C of global heating, second only to the 0.8C caused by carbon dioxide. According to Australian government data, agriculture is responsible for 70m tonnes of CO2-e from methane, coalmining is responsible for 28m tonnes, followed by 18.7m tonnes from the gas industry and 9.5m tonnes from waste.

The National Farmers Federation has opposed signing the pledge in the past, but has now backed the decision after funding commitments and assurances from the government that the voluntary pledge will not escalate to a tax on livestock methane, or mandated reductions of livestock.

Earlier this month, New Zealand flagged a levy on methane emissions, with the money raised to go into research to help the industry lower emissions.

The NFF’s chief executive Tony Mahar said on Sunday “the strong assurances and partnership provided by government mean the pledge will not negatively impact on farmers or the agriculture sector”.

Australia’s gas sector also welcomed the decision. The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association chief executive Samantha McCulloch said the industry was focused on attempting to reduce fugitive emissions from production.

McCulloch noted a number of gas companies were already direct signatories to the methane pledge or had “emissions reduction targets consistent with, or going beyond, the pledge”.

Methane decays to CO2 in the atmosphere over 12 years.  So if we cut methane emissions by 30%, that will over the next 12 years cut the level of methane in the atmosphere by 30% too.  Of course, there are still natural source of methane (rotting vegetation in ponds, for example), so there would never be zero methane in the atmosphere.  But the 0.5 degree rise in temperatures because of methane is not because of pre-existing natural methane emissions, but man-made new sources of emissions.   Eliminating all of them would cut global temperatures by 0.5 degrees.   And that would be a great achievement.