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At COP26, around 100 states pledged to reduce their emissions of methane, a very powerful pollutant. NGOs welcome this progress but wonder about its application.
It is the second greenhouse gas linked to human activity. In Glasgow (Scotland), during COP26, methane was for the first time the subject of an agreement signed by 97 countries on Tuesday, November 2. Over a century, this highly polluting gas has a warming effect 25 times more than CO2. Countries have pledged to reduce their emissions by 30% by 2030.
The NGOs welcome this agreement, but wonder about its application. “It is a gas which is responsible for half of the rise in temperature of 1.1 degrees, which has already been observed since the pre-industrial era and it is a gas which is increasing sharply.“, says Clément Sénéchal, climate spokesperson at Greenpeace.”The big lack of this methane agreement is the agricultural issue. The role of agriculture in methane emissions is not mentioned“, he notes.
Agriculture, in particular animal husbandry, in fact represents 40% of the methane produced by man. In France, 16,000 farmers have changed the diet of their animals to reduce methane emissions. An insufficient effort for the NGOs which advocate a reduction in the consumption of beef.