This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A new study, led by IIASA researchers and coauthored by UNEP colleagues, finds that if governments fully implement their methane reduction plans, they could reduce global emissions by 11% between 2020 and 2030. This would reverse the current trend of increasing methane emissions, but would not be sufficient to achieve the goal of the Global Methane Pledge.
The findings are published in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles. 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. 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% each come from the energy and agricultural sectors and 20% from waste and wastewater. Methane has contributed around 0.5°C of warming since preindustrial 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 that provides detailed estimates at the 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 have 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. "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.
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