Climate facts: Methane emissions mitigation can provide $260bn economic benefits

The complexities of climate change and its associated jargon can prove difficult to digest. TheCable’s climate quick facts will help to demystify these concepts through easy-to-understand and straight-to-the-point explanations.

Here are some to keep at the tip of your fingers:

The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) says May 2024 was the hottest May on record.

The organisation said it was the 11th consecutive month of record temperature exceeding the 1.5°C pre-industrial level.

The Intenational Convention on Climate Change (IPCC) says climate change has reduced Africa’s agricultural productivity growth by 34 per cent since 1961.

The organisation said future warming will negatively affect food systems in Africa by reducing growing seasons and increasing water stress.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says immediate, targeted methane abatement in the fossil fuel sector can prevent nearly 1 million premature deaths, 90 million tonnes of crop losses and about 85 billion hours of lost labour due to heat exposure by 2050.

The organisation said appropriate regulatory frameworks, credible data, and a dramatic ramp-up in investment needed to mitigate methane emissions from fossil fuel production.

If methane emissions is mitigated, UNEP said it can provide about $260 billion economic benefits as emissions of methane from the oil and gas value chain shows a wasted product that translates into about $34 billion of lost revenue annually.