France has called on the UK, China, Brazil, Australia and other countries present at a high-level meeting on addressing methane emissions today to back language on the topic in the UN Cop 31 climate summit's final decision.
Other countries taking part in the meeting included Turkey, Barbados, Norway and Germany. The EU was also at the table.
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and the second-largest contributor to global warming after CO2. It is widely seen as a 'low-hanging fruit' when it comes to actions to limit global temperature rises, but emissions keep on increasing.
French climate minister Monique Barbut said today that Cop 31 must go beyond 'coalitions of the willing' on the topic and she welcomed the dual Australia-Turkey Cop presidency saying methane could be part of the summit's final decision. Barbut said a text should mention a level of ambition and a call on the immediate action to be taken, and should call on the oil and gas sector to reach near zero methane emissions intensity by 2030 as well as zero flaring.
Barbados' prime minister Mia Amor Mottley, a strong advocate for methane emission cuts as a way to lower the rate of temperature rises, said actions from "the most efficient" oil and gas firms should be the gold standard. Major oil and gas companies that are part of the industry-led Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) reduced their collective upstream methane intensity to 0.13pc in 2025, compared with 0.12pc a year earlier.
Mottley said the world should move towards a legal agreement on methane emission reductions rather than voluntary approaches.
"We need to plot out carefully what is the road to an international treaty," she said. "We need to ensure that countries that can, either through policy or legislation, constrain how oil and gas companies are operating" with respect to flaring gas and pipe leaks.
Germany's state secretary at the environment ministry Heike Henn said regulations are a centrepiece of action on methane emission reduction. She pointed to the EU methane's regulation in the fossil fuel sector, which faces a one-year delay, saying it came under pressure because it is "a powerful tool".
Fossil fuel producers Norway and Australia also called for more actions on reducing methane emissions. Norway's environment minister Sigrun Gjerlow Aasland said the country thinks oil and gas must be the first sector to show progress. Australian energy minister Chris Bowen, who leads the Cop 31 negotiations, said there are real economic opportunities when it comes to methane leaks and flaring reductions in the oil and gas industry.
Bowen said today that Australia is supporting a methane declaration focused on the fossil fuel sector, which was started at Cop 30 in Brazil last year. The Cop 30 statement called "for stronger measurement and mitigation efforts to encourage wider adoption of near-zero methane principles and progress towards building, then scaling a near-zero methane intensity marketplace".
The UK's climate minister Katie White called on countries to broaden the methane agenda to other sectors including agriculture and waste. Barbados' Mottley urged countries to tackle the topic in the agricultural sector.
"We cannot leave it on the outside as a topic that we cannot touch," she said.
