US Emerges World’s Biggest Methane Emitter Despite Pressure on Nigeria to Jettison Fossil Fuels

A new report has listed the United States as the world’s highest methane emitter, despite sending a number of delegations to convince Nigeria and other fossil fuels-rich African countries to abandon their natural resources.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) in its latest report said that the US was followed by Russia and then China, which is one of the biggest coal energy users in the world.

Methane emissions from the energy sector, the IEA said, remained near a record high in 2023 – but stated that substantial policies and regulations announced in recent months have the potential to put them into decline soon.

The IEA’s latest update of its “Global Methane Tracker” is the first comprehensive assessment of global methane emissions since the COP28 climate summit concluded in December.

The new IEA analysis found that the production and use of fossil fuels resulted in close to 120 million tonnes of methane emissions in 2023, a small rise compared with 2022.

Another 10 million tonnes of methane emissions came from bioenergy, mostly from the traditional use of biomass for activities such as cooking, it said.

According to the report, the top 10 emitting countries were responsible for around 80 million tonnes of methane emissions from fossil fuels in 2023, two-thirds of the global total.

Aside the Special Envoy to President Joe Biden on Climate, John Kerry, being in Nigeria recently with several other US bigwigs to convince the country to embrace renewables, many delegations from Europe had also visited Nigeria for the same reason.

However, Nigeria has always maintained that it will deploy its God-given resources to transit to net zero by 2060.

“The United States, the largest global producer of oil and gas is also the largest emitter from oil and gas operations, closely followed by Russia. China is by far the highest emitter in the coal sector,” the IEA report said.

According to the report, satellites identified a substantial increase in major fossil fuel leaks in 2023 compared with 2022, with more than 5 million tonnes of emissions detected.

“According to the IEA’s new analysis, around 40 per cent of methane emissions from fossil fuel operations in 2023 could have been avoided at no net cost, since the value of the captured methane was higher than the cost of the abatement measure.

“Reducing methane emissions from fossil fuels by 75 per cent by 2030 would require about $170 billion in spending – less than 5 per cent of the income generated by the fossil fuel industry in 2023,” it added.

According to the IEA, this includes around $100 billion of spending in the oil and gas sector and $70 billion in the coal industry.

Earlier in the month, the Minister of State Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, affirmed that Nigeria will not be cajoled into jettisoning the production of fossil fuels, insisting that the country will handle the energy transition programme on its own terms.

Lokpobiri declared to Western nations in Europe and America that Nigeria would not stop the exploration of fossil fuels despite the pressure being mounted by the West for the discontinuation of investments in fossils.

“America is the highest producer of oil; they are ramping up production but they are asking us to stop. Remember that last year, the United Kingdom, under the present prime minister, gave about 100 licences for oil exploration.

“This means that the West is not slowing down in exploration, but we are being asked to slow down or stop investments in fossil fuel. I’ve always told them that we are not the problem, we are the victims and we will transit at our own pace,” he said.

Emmanuel Addeh

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