Burps, Flatulence and A Killer Warming Gas.

"Methane concentrations have increased about 150 percent in the air since 1750 and now far exceed the natural range of the past 650,000 years. And human activities are largely to blame." - United Nation IPPC

While much have been written about the contribution of carbon dioxide - released from the unbridled burning of fossils fuels and deforestation - to global warming, there is another greenhouse gas, much more potent and efficient in trapping atmospheric heat than carbon dioxide, that gets far less public attention in our efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change : Methane.

With a warming potential that is 23 times more than carbon dioxide, Methane is responsible for nearly as much global warming as all other non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gases put together. Once emitted, it lasts about ten years in our atmosphere before further oxidizing into carbon dioxide and water. According to climate scientist Dr.Paul Fraser of Australia, a fifth of all greenhouse gas-induced global warming has been due to methane since pre-industrial time and it is the second-largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions worldwide after carbon dioxide.

Methane is produced from a number of sources, mainly from human activities, like landfills, coal mining and forest fires but the number one source worldwide is animal agriculture.

Animal farming produces more than 100 million tons of methane every year with about 85 per cent of this produced in the digestive traits of livestock like cows, sheep and goats. A byproduct of digestion, cattle and other livestock animals produce methane when organisms in their stomachs break down the fiber in the grasses and grains that they eat, and through their belching and flatulence, emit methane and nitrous oxide, another potent greenhouse gas, into our atmosphere.

It is estimated that a single cow produces between 80 to 110 kilograms of methane a day and considering the hundreds of millions of livestock animals worldwide, the amount of methane produced is enormous.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, cattle emit about 5.5 million tons of methane every year in the United States alone, while in New Zealand, emissions from animal farming constituted about half of all greenhouse gas emissions from that country. Behaving like gas factories, livestock animals are responsible for about 18 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Besides the methane produced, animal agriculture is also a major contributor to serious environmental degradations like water pollution, from the collection of livestock waste, and deforestation - where forests are cleared for livestock farming - which had led to widespread loss in biodiversity of species in recent years. And as living standards rise in the developing world, the situation is expected to deteriorate with sharp increases in methane emissions as the demand for meat and dairy products rises.

With so much of the world's focus on reduction of carbon dioxide emissions - from capping emissions from power plants to investing in alternative energy resources - to mitigate the effects of climate change, we are overlooking the contribution of non-carbon dioxide gas emissions like methane to the rise in global temperatures.

Data published by Dr. James Hansen, Director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies have actually indicated that non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gases like methane are responsible for as much global warming as carbon dioxide, if not more. By focusing solely on carbon dioxide reduction, governments and environmental organizations are actually neglecting other sources of greenhouse gas emissions and alternative strategies for reducing global temperatures.

Unlike carbon dioxide, which can remain in the atmosphere for more than a century, methane cycles out of the atmosphere in about ten years, so lowering methane emissions can quickly translate to cooling of the earth. Similarly, unlike the efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions which can have devastating impact on economies, especially of developing countries, reduction in methane gas emissions is much easier to achieve.

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From the introduction of additives like enzyme inhibitors, to block the production of methane in the rumen of livestock, and supplementing the animals' diet with amino acids like cycteine, which reduces the amount of methane produced, to better agricultural practices to the straight forward capture of methane from landfills and coal mines to burn for power, reduction in methane gas emissions is a much more cheaper, attainable and feasible target than carbon dioxide reduction.

And like all the environmental issues facing mankind in recent years, it is again at the individual level that the greatest reduction in methane gas emissions will come from. Just by eating less meat or better still, adopting a vegetarian diet, will lead to lesser demand and not only will it reduce methane gas emissions from animal agriculture, it will also result in a cleaner environment and a healthier you.

*Sources :
- Earth Save
- Live Science Daily
- World Wildlife Federation
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
- NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
- U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

*Related posts :
- Man and The Loss Of Biodiversity
- The Convenient But Deadly Plastic Bag
- A Planet In Peril


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The Kyoto Song And The Bali Dance

"...the world is already at or above the worst-case scenarios in terms of emissions and we are moving past the most pessimistic estimates of the IPPC." - Germany's Kiel Institute for World Economy.

Representatives from more than 190 nations are meeting in Bali this week for talks to find a successor to the emissions-curbing Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2012. The outcome of the 13th meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will define the world's response to the threat of global warming and climate change in years to come.

Will the Bali talks result in a universal framework of concrete actions and commitments from the world's industrialised nations to adopt binding and absolute targets to curb and reduce greenhouse gases or will it be just another song and dance showpiece like the Kyoto Protocol?

The Kyoto Protocol came out of the UNFCCC and was adopted in Japan in Dec 1997 with an expiry in 2012. The Protocol committed 36 developed countries to reducing emissions of six greenhouse gases by around 5 per cent below 1990 levels and the target must be met between 2008 and 2012.

But since its inception 10 years ago, global carbon dioxide levels have increased instead, from 365 parts per million in 1998 to 383 parts per million today and the United States, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases with an annual emission of more than 6 billion metric tons, has yet to ratify the Protocol, with Australia signing it just recently with its change of government. Countries like Canada, while being a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, has largely ignored it with emissions up by about 25% from 1990 levels, without taking environmental degradations like deforestation in Canada into account.

Clearly, the 36 developed countries under the Kyoto Protocol have failed to deliver on their promises and carbon emissions have actually continued to rise in many industrialised countries that ratify the Protocol. Emissions have also soared in developing countries, like China, India and Brazil, who have ratified the accord but were not required to cut emissions. According to a report recently released by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, explosive economic growth and voracious coal consumption has led China to overtake the U.S. in CO2 emissions in 2006.

Deforestation in Indonesia

Large scale deforestation, a major contributor to global warming and which accounts for about 20 per cent of all global carbon dioxide emissions, is still unchecked in Indonesia and Brazil. Recent reports by Greenpeace indicated that between 2000 and 2005, an area of forest equivalent to 300 soccer pitches was destroyed every hour in Indonesia, making it the third largest CO2 polluter.

Probably the only positive outcome of the Kyoto Protocol was the increase in awareness among the general public and there is now a greater readiness among the people to act and to demand action. What is sorely lacking and what is needed is the political will.

With the United States divisive stand and indication that it is still opposed to mandatory capping in carbon emissions and Japan's latest proposal to adopt a broad "least common denominator" approach, without legally binding targets, in the Bali talks plus the contentious issues of equity, slowing of economic growth due to environmental controls and reduction definitions by per capita or per volume basis, the Bali conference is unlikely to produce an updated and strengthened successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

But produce it must, as the time for talking is over and the days of waiting for Bush is long gone. With or without the US, the world must act now as it no longer can afford another 10 years of inaction. The UN, EU and ASEAN must show desperately needed leadership and use the Bali conference to come up with a coherent agenda and mobilise global public opinion to support concrete, legally binding and absolute reduction targets in greenhouse gases emissions.

Let's hope the Bali conference is a dance that will result in a revolution that the world desperately needs - a healing one - before it is too late.

*Sources :
- Greenpeace
- World Wildlife Fund
- Kiel Institute for World Economy
- Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency
- Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, United Nations

*Related post : A Planet In Peril

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