Methane Mitigation Achievable Lever to Limit Warming in Near- and Long-term

Methane mitigation, while not a substitute for decarbonization, is an essential, potent ally that has not been deployed to the degree called for.

In fact, already available technologies to reduce methane emissions across all major sectors can avoid a considerable amount of warming in both the near- and long-term—undoubtedly essential to achieving long-term temperature targets but also beneficial during our lifetimes.

Here we clarify the warming benefits of economically and technically feasible methane mitigation measures by sector in order to build the momentum for the sector-specific climate policy development and decision making required to exploit this opportunity.

We find that with today's available technology, aggregate sector abatement strategies fully implemented by 2030 could reduce warming by 0.25 °C relative to business-as-usual by midcentury while avoiding 0.5 °C by end of century, essentially preventing warming from methane to rise over the 21st century; nearly half of the avoided warming is from oil and gas measures. As a theoretical upper bound, we find that eliminating all of today's anthropogenic methane emissions can reduce warming by 0.5 °C over the next two decades—which is half of today's warming.

By engaging multiple sectors in parallel, we have a huge opportunity to start to see the significant benefits of these actions in a single generation, while also setting ourselves on a better course for generations to come.