Methane Emissions Twice Officially Reported Totals - Guardian

The UK's emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane are nearly double what the government says they are, according to a global audit of methane emissions. The study, which looked at how much methane is released into the air rather than extrapolating from known sources such as landfill sites, suggests that Britain's actual contribution is 92% up on what it declares under the Kyoto protocol. It also suggests that France is emitting 47% more methane than it declares.

The report in New Scientist today coincides with the latest round of figures on greenhouse gas emissions by the European Union. Climate-changing gases, excluding those from aviation and shipping, increased by 18m tonnes or 0.4% between 2003 and 2004. The UK's emissions rose by 0.2%. Environmental groups greeted the news with dismay. " confirm our fear that the UK government is pretending to be a leader on climate change, but in reality it is a laggard," said Germana Canzi of Friends of the Earth.
Although methane emissions are much lower than carbon dioxide and the gas is broken down more quickly, it has a much more powerful warming effect. Over 100 years, a tonne of methane will cause 23 times as much warming as a tonne of CO2

Peter Bergamaschi of the European commission joint research centre at Ispra in Italy and his team set about calculating methane emissions from different countries independently of the internal estimates. He produced estimates based on the amount of methane in the atmosphere over the country. This involved collecting data from chemical detectors which sniff the air for methane.

Software then ran the recent weather backwards to work out where the gases must have been emitted. The study suggested that Germany had also underestimated its methane contribution by 62%. But during the course of Professor Bergamaschi's study Germany revised its estimate of national methane emissions upwards by around 70%, putting it in line with his figure.

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1803129,00.html

nt

Those Europeans can't say anything about us... they can't even clean up their own backyards....