Only days after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that most nations aren’t meeting their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a U.S. agency revealed that they aren’t even going after the low-hanging fruit.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Thursday that global methane emissions increased by a record amount in 2021.

Methane is about 84 times more efficient than carbon dioxide in trapping atmospheric heat. The good news is that it does not last as long, dissipating after about nine years. A study recently published in the journal Environmental Research Letters found that better controlling emissions from natural gas production, agriculture and industry could slow warming by about 30%.

The other good news is that it is possible to vastly reduce methane emissions using readily available technology. The gas, which basically is sold as natural gas, escapes from natural gas drilling, processing and transportation. It also escapes from landfills, cattle ranching and other agricultural operations.

Techniques are available to control all of those emissions. That’s why 100 countries joined the Global Methane Pledge of 2021, including six of the world’s 10 biggest methane emitters — the U.S., Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Mexico.

Countries that made those pledges, including the United States, should keep them and hasten the transition to renewable fuels.

— The Citizens’ Voice, Wilkes-Barre via TNS