Identifying and Monitoring Priority Areas for Methane Emissions Reduction

This paper identifies high-priority areas for methane emissions reduction and estimates recent emissions changes in those areas using atmospheric concentration data from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-5P satellite platform. The modeling approach is illustrated with three case studies: landfills in Spain (Madrid), irrigated rice production in India (Karnal district, Haryana state), and oil production in Iraq (Al Amarah district, Maysan governorate). For each case, the paper estimates two change models by fixed effects: the monthly trend in methane concentration from January 2019 to November 2022, and the difference between mean concentration in 2022 and the previous three years. The paper estimates the change models for 775 high-priority areas and finds that cases with decreasing methane emissions are outnumbered four to one by cases with increasing emissions. The paper also analyzes trends in high-priority areas for seven major methane source sectors (agricultural soils, livestock, gas, oil, coal, landfills, and wastewater) and finds only two where emissions decreases outnumber increases (gas and oil). Among World Bank income groups, decreases outnumber increases in high-income economies but increases are hugely dominant in the other three groups. The paper concludes with a presentation of summary emissions trend reports for all 775 high-priority areas, with accompanying maps and an Excel file. As satellite-based monitoring becomes more widely employed, such reports will provide a useful template for judging further progress toward fulfillment of the Global Methane Pledge