Methane rising faster than other greenhouse gases: Researchers

PARIS: Concentrations of a vital greenhouse gas (GHG) methane (chemical formula CH3), in the atmosphere are rising at a speeding pace, endangering efforts by countries to meet their climate targets, researchers warned on Tuesday.

“Methane is rising quicker in relative terms than any bigger greenhouse gas and is now 2.6-fold higher than in pre-industrial times,” said an international group of researchers under the umbrella of the Global Carbon Project in a study published in Environmental Research Letters.

Methane is the 2nd largest greenhouse gas generated by anthropogenic activity after carbon dioxide, with agriculture, energy production & consumption and organic waste rotting in landfills the major sources.

In the first twenty years its impact on the atmosphere is about eighty times than that of carbon dioxide, but it breaks down quicker.

That opens a possibility to sharply mitigate climate impact in the short term, but the researchers found that despite struggles to cut methane emissions that atmospheric concentrations of the gas are still rising.

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