More Broken Climate Promises

 

Methane is the second biggest contributor to global heating after carbon dioxide, with a greenhouse gas impact at least 27 times worse than CO2 over a 100-year time span. The gas is already responsible for about one-fifth of all global heating. Most of Europe’s methane emissions come from agriculture – particularly livestock – but the EU has avoided using policy levers such as its €387bn common agricultural policy to directly tackle the problem, according to the report by the Changing Markets Foundation. The EU won't achieve a promise to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030. Methane emissions rose by their highest ever amount to a new record last year

Nusa Urbancic, the campaigns director for the Changing Markets Foundation, said: “We’re in a climate emergency and cutting methane is the best short-term measure to slow the temperature increase. That is why we need urgent policy action to transform our food production systems. Our leaders must start listening to scientists instead of lobbyists, otherwise the EU won’t be able to meet the global methane pledge.”

 The Institute for European Environmental Studies, finds that the bloc is still failing to set dedicated methane targets for the livestock sector, or channel subsidies for methane cuts, forcing a reliance on loophole-ridden regulations which may hide agricultural emissions. The new report says that “undue influence” from agri-industry lobbyists, who EU officials met three times more often than non-industry groups, watered down legislative initiatives that could have cut livestock emissions. Methane releases from animal farming in Europe now have the global heating power of 160 coal-fired power plants, measured over a 20-year period. 

Tim Searchinger, a senior research scholar at Princeton University and senior fellow at the World Resources Institute, explained, “Enteric methane emissions [from cow burps and farts] alone would add at least 25% more to agricultural emissions by 2050, compared to 2010.” Searchinger said the best ways to mitigate methane emissions would be to feed livestock more efficiently, use new feed additives which may reduce emissions, and cut down on beef consumption.

EU on track to break pledge to cut methane emissions by 30%, warns report | Greenhouse gas emissions | The Guardian