With voluntary commitments to cut methane pollution floundering, the prime minister of Barbados urged fellow leaders at the United Nations last month to draw up a “legally binding global agreement” to reduce emissions of the particularly potent greenhouse gas.

Mia Mottley told the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Summit in New York that voluntary efforts like the UAE-led Oil and Gas Decarbonisation Charter – signed by over 50 oil and gas companies – were “not enough” to rein in methane. She said governments should urgently discuss a “no more than two-or-three page agreement on the reduction of methane as a matter of legally binding obligations”.

The Barbadian leader – who has a global reputation for proposing new ideas on climate action and finance – said governments “do not need to reinvent the wheel”. She suggested replicating the 1987 Montreal Protocol that has phased out the production and use of CFC and other gases found in fridges and air conditioners that were responsible for opening a hole in the Earth’s ozone layer.

That protocol put in place legally binding reduction targets for these chemicals, many of which are also greenhouse gases, incentivising government policies to make companies redesign their appliances.

Emissions of ozone-depleting substances have since dropped by almost 100%, and the ozone layer is closing, with Mottley calling it “the most successful climate agreement in history”.

Why focus on methane?

Methane is a short-lived greenhouse gas that is more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2). Experts say cutting methane emissions is a “low-hanging fruit” for tackling global warming, as it would make a big difference with relatively small actions.

Methane emissions come mainly from the agriculture sector (40%), the oil and gas industry (35%) and waste (20%).

Since COP26 in Glasgow, 111 countries have signed up to the Global Methane Pledge – which aims to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030, compared to 2020 levels. 

But, in its latest global tracking update in May, the International Energy Agency said methane emissions from fossil fuels remain at stubbornly high levels. Commitments like the pledge have boosted target-setting and momentum, it added, but so far “few countries or companies have formulated real implementation plans for these commitments, and even fewer have demonstrated verifiable emissions reductions”.

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Mottley told the summit at UN headquarters that tightening regulation on methane emissions made sense for the planet, fossil fuel firms and farmers – and would help buy time in the short-term as countries roll out their national climate plans to cut greenhouse gases across the board.

Her call was backed by French President Emmanuel Macron and Tuvalu’s Prime Minister Feleti Teo, who both said in their speeches that a “binding commitment” on methane is needed. “We know that this is a reachable goal,” Macron said, adding that methane reduction would be a priority when France chairs the G7 next year.

A more difficult challenge than ozone?

But replicating the Montreal Protocol for methane will be challenging. The vast majority of ozone-depleting gases come from a relatively small number of appliances and so could be reduced relatively easily. On the other hand, methane escapes into the atmosphere from a wide variety of sources including belching cows, rice paddies, landfills, leaking gas pipelines, coal mines and oil production facilities.

While some emissions can be prevented cheaply or even profitably – particularly in oil and gas production – others, like those from cows, are more expensive and politically controversial to avoid.

Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, has previously campaigned against ozone-depleting substances and is now pushing for methane cuts. He spoke alongside Mottley and Macron at a high-profile meeting on methane in New York in late September.

He told Climate Home News that getting a “coalition of the willing” to agree on methane targets is more likely than persuading all the world’s governments to sign up to an agreement. Countries could make their targets legally binding through their own domestic law, he said.

An international agreement is possible, he added, “but it also can start from the bottom up” if other governments – including sub-national ones like California and Punjab – adopted similar rules to the European Union’s methane regulation.

The EU requires oil and gas companies to detect and repair methane leaks and bans them from burning gas as a waste product in a process known as flaring. It is also imposing increasingly stringent methane intensity standards – opposed by the Trump administration in the US – on imported fossil fuels.

Zaelke said the next step was for Barbados to try and get the rest of the Climate Vulnerable Forum – a group of around 70 Global South countries which it now chairs – and other small island states on board with the idea.

He predicted that methane would have its “moment” at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil, as reduction of non-CO2 gases is one of the 30 objectives of the COP30 presidency’s “action agenda”.

Mottley’s proposal is expected to be discussed at the pre-COP gathering in Brasilia on October 13-14, although opposition from some countries will likely make reaching global consensus very difficult.

Citing comments by UN chief Antonio Guterres that we are on “the highway to climate hell”, Zaelke said: “We’ve got a methane emergency brake. If you pull it and turn the wheel, you can reverse course and slow warming in the near term more than any other way. I think this is becoming clear and so we’ll see the drumbeat for mandatory pick-up.”

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