Does 'The Science' Really Justify UK Net Zero Methane Emissions?

Gavin Schmidt didn't think so in 2021

It’s rather fortunate because Gavin abandoned X in July in protest at its Nazification under Elon’s ownership! But he didn’t close his account down and all his tweets are still publicly viewable.

Shame. I kind of miss him actually. Even though he was a rabid lefty dyed-in-the-wool climate alarmist, he did at least maintain an aura of scientific authenticity and integrity, and was generally polite even to ‘climate deniers’. And sometimes, he strayed from the authorised narrative, which seems to be the case here.

The conversation with Zeke Hausfather went like this:

There you have it. Because methane is an ozone precursor (it gets converted into ozone), you don’t need to reduce methane emissions to zero, just stabilise them.

I should point out that Schmidt is firmly of the opinion that anthropogenic methane emissions have caused significant global warming since 1850 and that rapid reductions in global CH4 emissions are essential to prevent further global warming. But he does not believe that reducing CH4 emissions to zero is a worthwhile enterprise. The UK is committed to further drastic reductions in CH4 by 2030, and to achieving net zero CH4 emissions by 2050. Why? What good will it do? How will it benefit the global climate?

The UK has already drastically cut emissions from waste and energy and agricultural emissions are stable, even having fallen slightly since 1990. So why the hell is the establishment now intent upon destroying the meat and dairy industries to achieve further pointless reductions in methane? The UK has done its bit on methane emissions as the government admits:

The UK is a global leader on reducing methane emissions. In 1990, UK methane emissions made up 17% of UK greenhouse gas emissions (135 MtCO2e). By 2020 methane emissions had significantly declined by 62%, making up approximately 13% of total greenhouse gas emissions (52 MtCO2e). ^{[footnote 16]} This percentage reduction is more than any other OECD country. Over the same period, the US and EU-27 have reduced methane emissions by 15% and 41% respectively. ^{[footnote 17]} In 2020, UK methane emissions per capita were around 0.8 tCO2e, substantially below the US (2.1 tCO2e) and EU-27 average (1.0 tCO2e). ^{[footnote 18]}

For the UK, the largest falls since 1990 have come from the waste sector (e.g. landfill sites) down by 47 MtCO2e (or 75%), energy sector (e.g. coal mining and handling) down by 32 MtCO2e (or 84%) and agriculture sector (e.g. enteric fermentation from cattle) down by 4 MtCO2e (or 15%). ^{[footnote 19]} This section will provide an overview of how the UK has achieved reductions across each sector.

I would say that counts as having ‘stabilised’ methane emissions at a low level, lower than any other major economy. So why are our politicians and Green groups and idiotic companies like Arla demanding that we now poison our cows with inadequately tested chemicals and probably sacrifice our dairy and beef industries in the process, along with our food security and access to nutritious, healthy meat and dairy products just to virtue signal our climate Godliness? It doesn’t make any sense, morally or scientifically. Something is off.