The United States and European Union have agreed to cut methane emissions by around a third by 2030 ahead of a UN-sponsored climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, on October 31-November 12, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the effort. Under the deal, the US and EU will pare methane emissions across sectors, including high-emitting industries such as oil and agriculture.
According to the sources, the deal is part of a diplomatic push to get other countries to follow suit. President Joe Biden plans to unveil the “global methane pledge” at the Glasgow meeting and will ask other nations to join it. One of the sources said Washington is trying to get at least a dozen countries to join the pledge before the climate summit next month.
The pledge will be the world’s first political commitment to reduce emissions of methane which is 84 times as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2 during its first twenty years in the atmosphere. Scientists believe that methane is contributing to at least a quarter of global warming.
