China close to climate pact with US? Releases 'ambiguous' methane reduction plan
China close climate agreement with US? Releases 'disappointing' methane reduction plan
China on Tuesday published its long-awaited methane reduction plan it had committed to back in 2021.
After two years of failing to materialise, the release of this plan signals that Beijing is moving closer to a new climate agreement with the United States.
How China plans to reduce methane
China, as per Reuters, is by far the biggest producer of climate-warming methane with over 14 per cent of global emissions. However, Tuesday's long-awaited plan does not include any firm targets. Instead, it proposes goals for the reuse of methane as fuel.
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The plan published by China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment pledges that the nation will strive to curb "flaring," or burning off emissions, at oil and gas wells. It also said that China would target methane leaks at coal mines to be closed up.
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Furthermore, the nation has vowed to promote methane control in agriculture and to bolster methane control from waste.
Experts call the plan disappointing
Political analysts are less than enthusiastic about the plan. At COP26 in Glasgow, China had pledged to cooperate with the US on measuring and reducing methane. However, its newly released strategy leaves much to be desired.
Yan Qin, lead carbon analyst at Refinitiv, a part of LSEG, a UK-based company that provides global financial market data, said the objectives mentioned in China's plan are "too ambiguous".
"The objectives mentioned in the plan are too ambiguous, and contain mainly descriptive text, no specific targets in methane emissions reduction."
However, others see the release of the plan as a "golden opportunity" which could mean that a new China climate agreement was on the horizon, reports The Guardian. Leaders of the two nations are expected to meet at the APEC summit in San Francisco next week.
At the Glasgow climate summit, the two nations had agreed to establish a working group on climate action.
Talking to Reuters, Climate analyst Li Shuo, the incoming director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society, commented that the plan's release potentially "paves the way" for a joint statement from the world's two largest greenhouse gas emitters.
Why methane reduction is important
Methane gas is a key emission responsible forglobal warming and climate change, which has a warming potential of 100 times that of carbon dioxide. Tackling methane is seen as the keyto controlling climate change in the short term.
(With inputs from agencies)
