Welcome to the Green Alliance podcast. We are the charity and think tank dedicated to achieving ambitious leadership for the environment.

I'm Rosie Allen, a policy advisor at Green Alliance. With COP29, the UN's annual International Climate Conference, less than two weeks away, in today's episode we're taking a deep dive into

the need for increased leadership on methane, both domestically and on the international stage.

We'll be exploring the potential of a National Methane Action Plan and hearing from experts

who are calling for bold steps to tackle international methane emissions.

Thank you. to tackle international methane emissions. I'm here with Liam Hardy, senior policy analyst at Green Alliance.

So, Liam, how does methane contribute to climate change?

Methane is a greenhouse gas.

Unfortunately, it's a lot stronger or better at warming than carbon dioxide,

so around 80 times stronger within a 20-year time period.

And so methane is responsible already for about a quarter to a third of the current

warming that we're experiencing.

But it's also very short-lived, and it breaks down into carbon dioxide

after about 12 years in the atmosphere. So that means that our methane emissions right now

are affecting global temperatures right now, and kind of only for the next 10 or 12 years or so into

the future. So if we can cut methane emissions now, we can slow down global

heating and reduce the peak temperature this century. That's really important because it could mean

avoiding really dangerous climate tipping points, like the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet,

or the dieback of the Amazon rainforest, or the thawing of Arctic permafrost.

And so cutting methane emissions urgently can act like a sort of emergency break on climate change.

It doesn't mean that we should slow down on action on carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases,

but it's an opportunity to have an outsized impact on slowing warming in the short term.

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