‘India’s methane emissions stabilising, conform to UN report’

India may have some good news on its methane emissions front.

An independent study by an international team of researchers, including some from India, has shown that there was very little growth in methane gas emissions from the country in recent years.

The scientists, led by Anita Ganesan, who specialises in estimating greenhouse emissions at Bristol University in the UK, found that India’s average emissions of methane gas were about 22 trillion grams per year between 2010 and 2015. The study appeared in the latest issue of the journal

More importantly, the study found that the estimates conform to what India has reported to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Significantly, their estimates showed India’s methane emissions are about a third lower than what was calculated by a global research consortium called the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research, in a comprehensive global inventory of greenhouse gas emissions.

This is in contrast to other countries, such as China, where measurements have shown increasing emissions of the gas in recent years, or the US, where large discrepancies have been found between reported emissions and those inferred from atmospheric observations.

Methane, the second most powerful greenhouse gas implicated in climate change, is mainly released from livestock and paddy fields.

It is a significantly more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide: each tonne of methane emitted contributes roughly 25 times more to global warming than a tonne of CO2.

“The fact that methane is among the most uncertain (greenhouse gases) is because, even though CO2 has the largest emissions, the underlying sources of methane are more difficult to quantify.

“Methane emissions can vary dramatically from one place to another and over time, which makes them more difficult to account for in an inventory,” said Ganesan, who works at the University of Bristol’s School of Geographical Sciences.

“India currently has the world’s largest cattle population and is a significant producer of rice. Because of this, methane accounts for approximately 20 per cent of India’s total emissions (as CO2 equivalent),” she told BusinessLine . In light of the new international climate pact, the Paris Agreement, there is increasing need for countries to accurately quantify their greenhouse gas emissions and to have independent checks on this reporting.

The aim of the study was to quantify India’s methane emissions using observations of methane concentration in the country’s atmosphere, the first time that this has been done for India at this scale.

For the study, the scientists used a combination of observations — from the surface, from an aircraft and from a satellite that is measuring methane concentrations globally from space.

The study also found that methane emissions are enhanced each year between June and September over emissions that are being released continuously.

This signal is due to rice, which is predominantly grown during this season, and can clearly be observed.