Getting back on track to reduce methane emissions

Methane is the second-largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide. Research shows that human activities account for approximately two-thirds of global methane (CH₄) emissions, of which about 40% comes from each of the energy and agricultural sectors and 20% from waste and wastewater. Methane has contributed around 0.5°C of warming since pre-industrial times, roughly one-third of the warming observed to date. Methane’s high warming potential and relatively short atmospheric lifetime make decisive and immediate efforts to reduce methane emissions the most effective means to control global warming in the next few decades.  

The new study is an update and follow-up to an analysis delivered by the same team in UNEP’s Global Methane Status report 2025. The purpose of these kinds of analyses is to provide policymakers with an independent and consistent assessment of which sectors and regions can reduce methane emissions the most and at what cost. The information is useful as a starting point when proposing and negotiating new international targets for methane emission reductions. To facilitate such policy processes, this study is accompanied by a comprehensive dataset which provides detailed estimates at country or regional level, of the potentials and costs of different technical solutions to control methane emissions in each source sector.        

In 2021, the Global Methane Pledge was launched as an international initiative to reduce methane emissions and slow down the pace of climate change. Since then, 159 countries and the European Commission pledged to jointly reduce global methane emissions by 30% between 2020 and 2030.

In their study, the researchers highlight a concerning fact: the plans countries have submitted on how they intend to achieve this goal could at best reduce emissions by 11%, which is significant but insufficient. The authors, however, explain that the target is technically achievable, although difficult to achieve, given the short time now left to the pledge target year 2030. A detailed assessment shows that a 22% reduction could be possible at a relatively low cost, while a 30% reduction would nearly exhaust the mitigation potential achievable with existing technology.   

“It is late, but not too late to achieve significant and meaningful reductions in methane emissions,” says IIASA researcher and lead author Lena Höglund-Isaksson. “Our research shows that the costs of implementing methane mitigation technology are considerably lower than the costs of dealing with the resulting climate impacts. Right now there is a political momentum to press for increasingly ambitious methane mitigation efforts to shave off a few tenths of degrees of global warming until 2050. This may not sound like much, but could very well be the difference between a stable future climate and a climate that lapses out of control because temporary overshoot in temperature sets critical tipping points in motion that could undermine the foundations for human livelihoods.”

The researchers explain that the source sector with the greatest potential for low-cost methane emission reductions is the fossil fuel sector. About 70% of the technical mitigation potential available for 2030 comes from reducing venting and flaring of associated gas during oil and gas production, controlling leakage in the oil and gas production and transportation chains, and limiting methane emissions from coal mining. The solid waste sector is another sector with great methane mitigation potential from diverting organic waste away from landfills and into circular treatment systems, while also managing methane from legacy landfills. Organic material in landfills continues to decompose and release methane for decades, which calls for urgent measures to transition to circular waste systems on a global scale. The agricultural sector is the hardest to abate. Technical solutions exist to control methane from rice fields and livestock manure management. However, the technical mitigation potential from the largest agricultural source — enteric fermentation emissions from ruminating livestock — is limited. Maintaining low emissions beyond 2050 would also require reduced use of fossil fuels and consumption shifts to healthier and more sustainable diets.

The study is published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles, a scientific journal of the American Geophysical Union. It is based on work conducted within the framework of two Horizon Europe projects: the IM4CA project and the EU-China Bridge Project, and benefitted from additional funding from the Climate and Clean Air Coalition and the Korea Environmental Industry & Technology Institute .

Reference:

Höglund-Isaksson, L., Gómez-Sanabria, A., Kuehnle-Nelson, L., Brocza-Pflügl, F., Quinn-Savory, S., Lindl, F., Huang, C., & Zhang, S. (2026). Global anthropogenic methane emissions: Bottom-up simulations of current trends and scope for future mitigation. Global Biogeochemical Cycles. DOI: 10.1029/2026GB009471.