We estimate that the global energy sector was responsible for around 135million tonnes of methane emitted into the atmosphere in 2021. Following the Covid-induced decline in 2020, this represents a year-on-year increase in energy-related methane emissions of almost 5%, largely due to higher fossil fuel demand and production as economies recovered from the shock of the pandemic.
The inclusion in the Global Methane Tracker of country-by-country estimates for coal activities, alongside those for oil and gas operations, makes the People’s Republic of China (hereafter “China”) the largest source of global energy-related methane emissions, with 28million tonnes (Mt), followed by Russian Federation (hereafter “Russia”) (18Mt) and the United States (17Mt).
The energy sector is responsible for around 40% of total methane emissions attributable to human activity, second only to agriculture. Of the 135million tonnes of energy-related emissions, an estimated 42Mt are from coal mine methane, 41Mt from oil, 39Mt are from extracting, processing and transporting natural gas, 9Mt from the incomplete combustion of bioenergy (largely when wood and other solid biomass is used as a traditional cooking fuel), and 4Mt leaks from end-use equipment.
The wasteful leakage of methane, the main component of natural gas, is all the more striking given today’s backdrop of very tight and volatile gas markets. Methane leaks in 2021 from fossil fuel operations, if captured and marketed, would have made an additional 180billion cubic metres of gas available to the market, an amount similar to all the gas used in Europe’s power sector. This would have been comfortably enough to ease today’s price pressures.
