International group blasts fossil fuel industry for increased methane emissions

The International Energy Agency (IEA), a group of oil-consuming nations, criticized the fossil fuel industry after the sector’s emissions of planet-warming methane rose last year. 

The IEA found that in 2022, the global energy sector was responsible for 135 million metric tons of methane emissions. This is a slight increase over the industry’s 2021 measurement of releases of the greenhouse gas.

According to the organization, 75 percent of emissions from the oil and gas sector could be cut through technologies that are already on the market and would cost less than 3 percent of the industry’s income to install. 

An IEA statement said that the fact that this has not yet been done highlights “a lack of industry action on an issue that is often very cheap to address.”

“Our new Global Methane Tracker shows that some progress is being made but that emissions are still far too high and not falling fast enough – especially as methane cuts are among the cheapest options to limit near-term global warming. There is just no excuse,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol in the press release. 

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that is more than 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide, but it spends less time in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is still the biggest contributor to planetary warming, but methane is also responsible for about 30 percent of the temperature increase, according to the IEA.

The energy industry is responsible for about 40 percent of human-caused methane emissions, according to the report, making it the second-largest emission source behind only agriculture.