Global anthropogenic methane emissions 2005–2030: technical mitigation potentials and costs

L Höglund-Isaksson

doi:10.5194/acp-12-9079-2012

Abstract

Abstract. This paper presents estimates of current and future global anthropogenic methane emissions, their technical mitigation potential and associated costs for the period 2005 to 2030. The analysis uses the GAINS model framework to estimate emissions, mitigation potentials and costs for all major sources of anthropogenic methane for 83 countries/regions, which are aggregated to produce global estimates. Global emissions are estimated at 323 Mt methane in 2005, with an expected increase to 414 Mt methane in 2030. The technical mitigation potential is estimated at 195 Mt methane in 2030, whereof about 80 percent is found attainable at a marginal cost less than 20 Euro t−1 CO2eq when using a social planner cost perspective. With a private investor cost perspective, the corresponding fraction is only 30 percent. Major uncertainty sources in emission estimates are identified and discussed.

Highlights

Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas currently contributing to about 15 percent of global anthropogenic greenhouse gases emitted every year when assuming a greenhouse warming potential (GWP) of 25 times carbon dioxide (CO2) over 100 yr (IPCC, 2007)
CH4 is an important source of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, and its mitigation is especially important for controlling climate change in the near term (Shindell et al, 2012)
The fraction of the entire technical mitigation potential available at a net profit is estimated at 35 percent with a social cost perspective and 13 percent with a private cost perspective

Summary

Introduction

Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas currently contributing to about 15 percent of global anthropogenic greenhouse gases emitted every year when assuming a greenhouse warming potential (GWP) of 25 times carbon dioxide (CO2) over 100 yr (IPCC, 2007). As CH4 has a relatively short perturbation lifetime of 12 yr in the atmosphere, the GWP over 20 yr is considerably higher at 72 times that of CO2 (IPCC, 2007). With this shorter time horizon, CH4 emissions account for about 35 percent of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. This work identifies important sources of global CH4 emissions, the possibilities for reducing these emissions, and associated mitigation costs. It points out major sources of uncertainty and highlights critical gaps in knowledge. The presented work is an update and extension of previous work on CH4 using the GAINS model (Hoglund-Isaksson and Mechler, 2005; Cofala et al, 2007; UNEP, 2011), see Sect. 3.2 for a comparison

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Results

Conclusion