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The Invisible Infrastructure of Climate Resilience

UN chief António Guterres called on Tuesday for stronger action to cut emissions of planet-heating methane, taking aim at the fossil fuel industry’s practices and profits, and pointing to coal, oil and gas as the root of today’s climate and energy crises.

In a major speech at London Climate Action Week, with the British capital under a heatwave warning, the UN Secretary-General said countries had not done enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with what is needed to keep warming below the globally agreed goal of 1.5C. 

“The task before us is to strictly limit the overshoot, shorten its duration, and bring temperatures down below 1.5 degrees Celsius as fast as possible,” Guterres said. One way of doing that, he added, is by cutting methane emissions first.

He noted that methane – a potent greenhouse gas that traps around 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide – is responsible for around one-third of global warming but breaks down in the atmosphere within a decade or two.

“That means that aggressive cuts could produce visible temperature relief within a generation,” the UN chief emphasised, launching a global call to action on methane covering fossil fuel production, agriculture and organic waste disposal.

Of the three main sources of methane, he singled out the fossil fuel industry, where he said “the most immediate gains can be made”.

He cited the International Energy Agency (IEA) finding that around 70% of oil and gas methane emissions can be eliminated using existing technology, mostly at low or no net cost. This is because the gas leaking from coal mines and oil and gas production facilities can be captured and then used or sold.

Despite this, in 2025 alone, Guterres said some 167 billion cubic metres of gas were flared – as much as Africa consumes in a year.

“I am urging the fossil fuel industry to step up and do what is long overdue,” added the UN chief, whose term ends this year.

Guterres said voluntary action “is no longer enough” and there were similar global precedents for getting rid of harmful substances, including leaded petrol and ozone-depleting chemicals. “Methane pollution must be next,” he emphasised.

Methane emissions stuck at highs

The latest Global Methane Tracker report from the IEA shows that methane emissions from fossil fuels remained at very high levels in 2025, with no sign of a decline globally despite progress in some countries. In 2025, energy generated 41% of global methane emissions, followed by agriculture (40%) and waste (17%).

On Tuesday, a World Bank tracker showed that global gas flaring rose for the third year in a row in 2025, wasting an estimated $54 billion worth of gas by burning it off.

Demetrios Papathanasiou, the World Bank Group’s global director for energy, said that at a time when many countries are struggling to expand their access to affordable and reliable energy, “the economic development costs of continued flaring are simply too high”. “The gas currently flared could be captured to power industries and businesses, create jobs and strengthen energy security,” he said in a statement.

As well as easing climate change, the IEA says capturing waste methane could help improve gas market security after Iran’s near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz removed close to 20% of global liquefied natural gas supply from the market. 

The prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, last year called on leaders at the UN General Assembly to draw up a “legally binding global agreement” to reduce methane emissions, an idea that is also supported by France.

Mottley’s “legally binding” methane pact faces barriers, but smaller steps possible

However, Guterres stopped short of supporting such a solution on Tuesday, throwing his weight instead behind a proposal for governments to set a new global standard for net near-zero methane emissions across the value chain in the oil and gas sector.

This initiative, outlined in a report on the new call to action, would establish a common, internationally recognised methane intensity benchmark, for use by both producers and consumers. Compliance with the standard would then become a condition for financing, procurement and long‑term market access.

Voluntary action ‘not enough’

In recent years, countries and companies willing to act on the methane problem have teamed up on the Global Methane Pledge, which aims to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030 from 2020 levels, and the UAE-led Oil and Gas Decarbonisation Charter, signed by over 50 oil and gas companies. But their success has been limited in real terms.

Speaking at a separate event on Monday, Jonathan Banks, vice president of methane pollution prevention at the Clean Air Task Force (CATF), said the global pledge had been successful in creating “high-level political buy-in”, raising more money to detect methane emissions and helping countries plug their sources.

But it “is not there to be this all-encompassing binding treaty that drives emissions down”, he added.

At last year’s COP30, 11 countries representing around 10% of global oil production and 18% of gas exports signed a pledge to “drastically reduce” methane emissions in the fossil fuel sector, including by eliminating routine gas flaring and venting.

Comment: Curbing methane is the fastest way to slow warming – but we’re off the pace

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) also runs a system that detects methane leaks around the world. It has issued more than 5,000 alerts across 33 countries, but received responses in only 12% of cases.

Meghan Demeter, a programme manager at the UNEP service, said on Monday that countries face several barriers to responding to the alerts, including limited capacity to interpret the data and act on it, as well as funding shortages, particularly among national oil companies.

A senior UN official told journalists that existing initiatives on methane had raised awareness of the issue but had failed to deliver the emissions cuts needed. “’It’s absolutely critical that governments step in and strongly regulate the oil and gas sector,” he added.

Norway leads the way

As an example of how this could work, the call to action report singled out Norway, which banned routine flaring in 1971, imposed a tax on emissions from petroleum production and transport in 1991, and increased its tax on flaring and methane emissions in 2017. It now has one of the lowest methane emissions intensities of upstream oil and gas production in the world. 

The report said that if all countries matched Norway’s standards, global methane emissions from oil and gas operations could fall by roughly 90%.

Recent COP hosts Brazil and Azerbaijan linked to “super-emitting” methane plumes

It added that China, Canada, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar reduced or maintained their methane emissions from oil and gas production between 2023 and 2024, even as output increased, indicating a decline in the emissions intensity of their operations.

On Monday, the Fossil Fuel Regulatory Programme (FFRP), a UNEP-backed initiative that works with governments to strengthen regulatory frameworks for cutting methane emissions from their energy sectors, added Egypt, Brazil, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to its existing partners, Ghana, Kazakhstan and Iraq.

Windfall tax on fossil fuel profits

Guterres also made a strong push for states to hit the very deep pockets of fossil fuel companies with windfall taxes, as countries like the UK, Italy or Spain have done in recent years.

He said fossil energy giants had reaped ”extraordinary profits”, with the eight biggest making an extra $6.5 billion in the first quarter of this year alone, which included only one month of the Middle East crisis which has pushed up oil prices.

“These are windfall gains born of pain – of instability, hardship and dependence. I urge governments to tax them,” said the UN chief. 

He added that the proceeds should be used “where they belong: helping vulnerable families and communities, and accelerating the shift to clean, affordable energy”.

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UN chief says fossil fuel industry must cut methane for warming “relief”