Methane (Environment and Climate Change Committee Report)
(2 days, 13 hours ago)
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Baroness Sheehan
That this House takes note of the Report from the Environment and Climate Change Committee Methane: keep up the momentum (HL Paper 45).
Baroness Sheehan (LD)
My Lords, it is indeed a pleasure, as chair, to debate the findings of the Environment and Climate Change Committee’s report, Methane: Keep Up the Momentum, about a devastating greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide and one that is responsible for about 30% of global warming to date. Yet the evidence we gathered shows that the story is one that offers hope because methane, although very powerful in its warming impact, is short-lived and, therefore, if we can reduce emissions, we can substantially slow down global warming within decades, and with greater ambition we could start to cool the planet. Professor Piers Forster, interim chair of the Government’s advisory body, the Climate Change Committee, stressed that rapidly reducing methane emissions alongside addressing carbon dioxide could reduce the current trajectory of global warming from 0.25 degrees Celsius per decade to 0.1 degrees Celsius per decade, and that is a goal worth achieving.
The good news is that we already know how to capture, bottle and sell the emissions from two of the highest emitting sectors globally: oil and gas, and waste management. Emissions from agriculture are more challenging to capture, but there is light on the horizon to reduce them, as highlighted in the report. The key thing about methane, otherwise known as natural gas, is that it has value. We use it to heat our homes, cook our food and produce electricity. It is the transition fuel that will bridge our move to renewable energy, so why vent and flare it when we could harness and use it? This is what makes this report so important and one that the Government must not leave to gather dust, which is the fate of so many excellent Select Committee reports, but instead to use it to lend momentum to the already excellent, but currently stalled, record of reducing methane emissions in the UK and, importantly—and this is the crux of the report—to use our know-how, experience and ambition to leverage action internationally, as we have undertaken to do in the Global Methane Pledge.
We heard evidence that there is potential to scale up cutting-edge products of UK companies as they deploy innovative tools to measure, monitor and verify emissions. In short, with the right policy and regulatory framework we can support growth in our economy and generate jobs, while reducing methane emissions and keeping warming within the goals of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius. I hope that the Minister will agree to meet me so that I can introduce him to one such company in the space sector, where huge strides are being made to measure the intensity of methane emissions and locate them with pinpoint accuracy. This will be a game-changer.
The purpose of the report was to evaluate progress made on the domestic side to tackle the sources of anthropogenic methane emissions that are within the scope of the Global Methane Pledge and to get to grips with the potential for the UK to do more both at home and internationally where there is so much low-hanging fruit. Will the Minister state whether he has fully bought into the commitment of the Government led by Boris Johnson, when, at the COP 26 summit in Glasgow, they wholeheartedly supported the launch of the Global Methane Pledge to reduce global methane emissions by at least 30% by 2030 from a 2020 baseline? If the Minister is fully signed up to support the Global Methane Pledge, on what basis can he justify the Government’s refusal to publish their own methane action plan to provide clarity on priority actions for each sector? I hope he will not point to an as yet non-existent carbon budget delivery plan because that will not suffice. We ask for a clear, stand-alone document to encourage other countries to produce the same. Such an important intervention to combat the climate emergency cannot be buried in a wide-ranging document such as the Carbon Budget Delivery Plan, where one has to dig hard to discern the Government’s intent. The Minister may also point to these country’s co-chairship with Brazil of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, the UN-affiliated organisation that provides a secretariat for the Global Methane Pledge. I am truly delighted that Minister Kerry McCarthy has taken up this role discarded by the US in January.
As my committee’s methane report makes clear, domestically we have made good progress in reducing methane emissions from the waste management and oil and gas sectors, but less so in agriculture. Residual emissions may be more stubborn and therefore more costly. However, it is the Government’s role to balance the cost of action with the cost of inaction over the long term. That point is made throughout the report.
I turn to the waste sector. The UK’s success in reducing methane from the waste sector was driven in large part by the landfill tax. Together with incentives from the renewables obligation scheme, which improved landfill gas capture, the UK saw a 76% decrease in emissions between 1990 and 2022. Colleagues speaking after me may wish to say more on the important issues of waste crime, the renewable obligation scheme, anaerobic digesters and other matters. I hope the Minister, however, will take this opportunity to reiterate his Government’s determination to bear down on upstream measures such as reducing food and packaging waste, given the greater stress that this Government are placing on moving faster towards a more circular economy. Our technical ability to tackle emissions from landfill sites is world-beating. There is much that we can share internationally. Later this year, COP 30 is taking place in Brazil, where there is opportunity to leverage our knowledge and expertise to work with Latin American countries as they consider their policy options for landfill gas capture. I hope we will lean into this with gusto and lend our expertise.
Moving to agriculture, almost half the UK’s methane emissions can be attributed to agriculture, all of it from livestock. The 15% reduction in emissions since 1990 can be attributed largely to reduced consumption of red meat. However, the committee heard that there are other viable methods for further meaningful cuts in emissions, such as improved animal welfare, selective breeding, methane-suppressing feed additives and better slurry management. Can the Minister assure me that Defra takes the issue of methane emissions seriously? Defra is not the responsible government department for greenhouse gas emissions and, therefore, methane reduction just does not seem to be high on its list of priorities. In their response to recommendation 10—that low-cost, long-term solutions must be prioritised, with supermarkets playing their part in reducing emissions from the food sector—the Government said:
“Alongside the upcoming food strategy and farming roadmap we will deliver a credible plan to decarbonise food and farming”.
Will the Minister say when can we expect to see the food strategy and farming road map?
Similarly, the Government are reviewing the regulatory framework that they inherited—thank goodness, because our report highlighted grave shortcomings in the existing framework. For example, I hope that the review will address the fact that there is no regulatory oversight of agricultural methane, apart from in some aspects of agricultural waste.
I move on to energy. In my view, one of the most important recommendations in the report is to,
“demand greater transparency and accountability of industry commitments to end the routine venting and flaring of methane”
by
“a publicly accessible roadmap and transparent data”.
This is something that the industry has committed to do, as was restated by the NSTA when it gave evidence to the committee. However, the Government’s response did not address the points about transparent data or a road map for the industry; perhaps the Minister could take this opportunity to do so now.
I say this because international emissions from the oil and gas sector continue to grow, yet the gas that is routinely vented and flared could be captured and sold. Professor Steven Hamburg of Environmental Defense Fund told the committee that oil and gas have “enormous potential” for methane reduction globally. He also said:
“That is not low-hanging fruit; that is fruit lying on the ground”.
Can the Minister provide an update on progress in how methane from the upstream oil and gas sector could be included in the ETS scheme? I hope that progress is being made on that.
In concluding, I stress that the report would have been challenging to get over the line in the best of circumstances. However, during it, we lost our policy analyst, Flo Bullough, midway; we then lost our clerk, Emily Bailey Page, towards the end of the report’s finalisation. Such talented people will always be in demand. I would like to put on the record my gratitude to them for their sterling input. I must thank wholeheartedly all those who stepped into the breach, including Tom Wilson, the principal clerk of Select Committees, the incoming clerk, Andrea Ninomiya, and our policy analyst, Lily Paulson. They were magnificent in picking up the baton and ushering the report over the finish line, and I thank them all once again.
This report holds the dubious record of being the longest-debated report to be produced by any House of Lords committee, which will give your Lordships a flavour of the divergent views of the committee. I wholeheartedly commend my colleagues on the committee for the unfailing courtesy with which all discussions were undertaken. There is real value in bringing together the threads of different viewpoints in a report that all members felt able to sign up to and one of which I, for one, am very proud. I beg to move.
Lord Grantchester (Lab)
I open my remarks today by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, for the excellent way in which she chaired the committee throughout a rather tricky period over the election and change of Government last summer. The committee also changed its policy adviser and support clerks during this inquiry, yet its coherency hung together with its themes and approach. I thank Flo Bullough, who set off with the committee as its policy analyst, and Lily Paulson, who saw us to a safe conclusion. I also thank the clerks to our committee, Emily Bailey Page and Andrea Ninomiya. I declare my interests as recorded on the register, notably activities on a dairy farm, with agriculture featuring prominently and extensively in the report.
The committee benefited from a very divergent membership—not only in being cross-party, of course, but from hearing a wide range of experiences and opinions regarding climate change and the role of the Government in mitigating methane emissions. I am told that the number of meetings needed to resolve drafting issues set a new record high and certainly prolonged publication, yet I am pleased that the committee was able to agree unanimously to a final wording, despite many reinterpretations. This was in no small measure due to careful handling by our excellent chair.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, has given an excellent account of the committee’s findings and recommendations. We received many detailed scientific papers and had many interesting witnesses give evidence. I draw attention to the important contribution given by Professor Myles Allen from the University of Oxford on understanding the different nature of methane as a greenhouse gas, the importance of how it differs in its effects from carbon and, therefore, the importance of various methods of measuring and reporting on it between GWP100—that is, global warming potential 100—as against GWP* and GWP20.
Understanding this, I found it disappointing that the Government chose to reject our important recommendation 2, to publish a methane action plan in support of other government plans and strategies, stating that this was covered already in the existing five-year carbon budgets. The proposed updated plans for the latest carbon budget, with the 2030 NDC—nationally determined contribution—contributing to the Global Methane Pledge, will certainly be meaningful. However, it would also have been worth while to outline in a comprehensive individual action plan vital steps that could be interpreted as methane actions.
Part of this focus that such an action plan could embrace would be the improvement in monitoring and verification, both nationally and internationally. The Government’s action here is welcomed, in their response to the committee’s recommendation 3 on the establishment of an international body to assess and report the methane action plans of the pledge’s participants. Nationally, a more concerted structure proposal for sector monitoring is beginning to take shape, especially in the agricultural sector. That agriculture is beginning to look exposed, as the sector finds it most difficult to make meaningful reductions and progress, became a large part of the committee’s investigations for solutions.
While the committee examined other sectors in the report, I will concentrate my remarks on the agricultural sector. The Minister will be aware of the important work being done by his department on emissions measurement, monitoring, reporting and verification improvements. Within agriculture, the levy-funded pilot project to showcase the importance of an on-farm environmental baseline is being undertaken by AHDB—the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board. The aim is to create a nationwide standardised dataset across the various sectors within agriculture to enable more accurate reporting of emissions from the bottom up—that is, at farm level—in the environmental impact of agriculture. This is important to reveal the true net carbon position on the balance of emissions and carbon removals through farm coppices, woodlands and other features, which would also include carbon sequestration potential.
The outcome could be instructive as a dataset to show the range and variety of results from individual farms to allow the industry to move away from relying on national and international averages. Does the Minister agree that, in targeting agriculture as being most in need of methane reductions, providing a more accurate reflection of its position and progress towards net zero is an important part of his department’s greenhouse gas emissions monitoring and verification programme? Can he confirm that agriculture’s progress is part of the GEMMA—Greenhouse Gas Emissions Measurement and Modelling Advancement—programme?
Farming’s impact on the environment is amplified by the lack of accurate farm-level data. The evidence to the committee from Professor Dave Frame, professor of physics at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, that all farmers should “know their numbers”—namely, have data on their farm’s impact—was very revealing. Here, I draw attention to the go-to guide produced by the Innovation for Agriculture on behalf of WWF and Tesco. Valuable information could be provided through farmer data collected as part of the NFU’s Red Tractor assurance scheme. I request that the Minister feeds this to his Defra colleagues in their review of the sustainable farming incentive, which is relevant to our recommendation 15. For example, Tesco was also involved in the research of the feed additive, Bovaer, and runs important carbon footprint monitoring of farms.
ForFarmers also undertook research on Lintec made from a Pacific variety of linseed to enhance bovine health, fertility and sustainability. Costs are prohibitive for livestock producers at the moment. Can the Minister update your Lordships’ House on the dairy demonstrator project, which is in our recommendation 12? I am also aware of the UK Dairy Carbon Network project, which is also funded by Defra and being undertaken by AHDB and AgriSearch. How do these complement each other?
I am grateful for the evidence about the selective breeding improvement programmes provided by Drew Sloan of Semex. Costs and risks are already being shared appropriately across government and industry. It is now imperative that the Government look to improve communication, through the proposed land use framework, to integrate the rural dimension with wider challenges on the demands for infrastructure, housing and growth. The report also embraces methane in its wider applications, with waste management and emissions extending into the offshore oil and gas industries. It underlines the importance of not only reducing emissions but capturing them for beneficial use.
This is a very important report to which the Grand Committee will need to return as progress continues towards 2030 and beyond.
Lord Trees (CB)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to be a member of this Select Committee and to speak here today. I thank our chair and our excellent staff who support our committee; they really have been outstanding. I have no major interests to declare except that I am a veterinarian and a co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare. I have no financial interests of relevance.
I will concentrate on the contribution of UK agriculture, and specifically ruminants, to methane emissions, because they are such a significant part of our total anthropogenic methane emissions. We have already heard that methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, but it is short lived: it remains in the atmosphere for about 12 years, compared with CO2, which remains for hundreds if not thousands of years. This is critically important: constant emissions of CO2 accumulate and increase global warming, whereas constant emissions of methane stabilise at equilibrium after a few years and warming stabilises. Crucially, reducing methane emissions results in cooling, so major global reductions in methane emissions provide a unique opportunity to slow the pace of global warming in the short term, while CO2 reduction and removal technologies can be further developed.
Globally, methane emissions are rising, which is very disturbing. However, I am pleased to say that in the UK our methane emissions are not rising; in fact, there has been a significant reduction of over 60% since 1990. However, reduction within agriculture has been relatively small. Agriculture is now responsible for approximately 50% of the UK’s anthropogenic methane emissions, virtually all of which is from ruminants, particularly cattle.
Different metrics are significant in understanding the impact of methane and formulating policy. Internationally, the metric GWP100 is used to quantify the global warming potential of different greenhouse gases over 100 years within different sectors. However, it can misrepresent methane’s warming impact by not considering its short-lived nature in the atmosphere. In a nutshell, GWP100 overestimates the impact of constant methane emissions by threefold to fourfold, underestimates the impact of newly emitted methane by fourfold to fivefold and fails to account for the cooling effects when methane emissions reduce.
To address these limitations, scientists, in particular at the University of Oxford, have developed GWP*, which better accounts for the short-lived nature of methane in the atmosphere. Experts differ on the pros and cons of GWP100 and GWP*, but comparisons emphasise how significantly the way in which data are analysed and presented can influence policy and priorities. For example, the emissions warming potential of a unit of beef estimated using GWP100 is three and a half times greater than when utilising GWP*. For this reason, our report recommends that
“the Government should … consider how additional metrics can be robustly employed at the sectoral and the business level to improve understanding of the UK’s emissions”
and
“move towards unilaterally implementing an auxiliary metric to better reflect the warming impact of methane”.
However, in their response to our report, the Government remained unconvinced on fully supporting the use of GWP* to assess agricultural emissions, which I regret; I think that it has a role to play in understanding the problem we have.
A second metric of importance is methane intensity—that is, the amount of methane or its CO2 equivalent per unit of productivity. Data based on FAO figures show that, for example, a kilogram of protein can be produced from cattle in the UK at a quarter of the CO2 equivalent emissions of the global average. In general, although our beef and dairy industries are significant emitters of methane, they are lesser emitters compared with other countries from which we may import beef and dairy products. The issue of importation is particularly relevant in relation to the recent US-UK trade agreement, for example, and other agreements to be negotiated; our Select Committee report makes these important points very clearly.
I turn to mitigation, where there is good news. There is a lot more that we can do in the UK to further reduce methane emissions from our ruminants. We have some of the world’s best experts in methane monitoring and abatement, as we have heard, and we have highly innovative and progressive farmers. However, as our report highlights, the Government have a role in setting this as a priority for agricultural support. It is regrettable that the sustainable farming incentive has been paused, especially since the Agriculture Act 2020 explicitly provided that, in the transition from the CAP, the Secretary of State could support climate change mitigation measures.
This is not just about finance, although that is important. Much could be achieved by the Government setting clearer goals, providing consistent advice and technical support, and encouraging peer-to-peer knowledge transfer to address methane emissions and to ensure that all of our farmers are adequately equipped with both knowledge and a desire to something about it. In their response, the Government acknowledged that there may be benefits to a targeted approach for agriculture to better incentivise methane reductions; we look forward to seeing evidence for this. Most measures to increase productivity will reduce emissions per unit of production. Improved health and disease control, smarter management such as reducing calving intervals, nutritional measures and breeding for reduced methane emissions—methane output is a heritable trait—are all achievable means that increase profitability and productivity, as well as reducing methane emissions per unit of production.
With reference to breeding, new genetic technologies, as provided for in the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023, could rapidly advance progress. As was referred to earlier, feed additives such as Bovaer show promise. This product has recently been approved for use in the UK by the Food Standards Agency, and I note that some governments in Europe already subsidise farmer application of this product.
The Dairy Demonstrator project—now branded as the UK Dairy Carbon Network and launched in February by the current Government—will include support for participating farms to investigate and trial various emission mitigation methods. It is to be welcomed; I congratulate the Government on that.
Substantial improvements in endemic disease control —for example, better application of current vaccines—are technically possible now that we have the necessary products to improve emission intensity. The introduction by the previous Government of the animal health and welfare pathway is to be welcomed; it can make a positive difference.
Impacts on slurry and manure cannot be ignored as they are responsible for about 7% of the total anthropogenic methane emissions and affect all livestock species. A number of abatement technologies are applicable, including covering slurry tanks and anaerobic digestion of the waste. Given that farms are often small or medium enterprises, major capital improvements require co-operation among farmers—and, probably, some financial support—but those investments could yield significant benefits in reducing methane release.
In conclusion, in the UK, ruminants fed mainly on grass in one form or another produce healthy and nutritious food but also about half of all of the UK’s anthropogenic methane emissions. However, the estimate of the warming potential of these emissions varies by more than threefold depending on which metric is used. Moreover, current data show that greenhouse gas emissions per unit of production for both beef and dairy are substantially lower in the UK than most other countries. However, there is much that we could and should still do to reduce our methane emission intensity. In many cases, the technology exists but there needs to be consideration of cost-benefit ratios to achieve full implementation.
The bottom line is that we must guard against destroying our own livestock industry, which is relatively environmentally efficient, and the inevitable consequence: importing more meat and dairy produced with poorer environmental efficiency and greater emissions elsewhere.
The Earl of Leicester (Con)
My Lords, I had the honour of joining the Environment and Climate Change Committee just as it embarked upon this inquiry into CH4, which, as we heard from many of our American witnesses, is something called methane.
Let me share a useful analogy with noble Lords. In January 2020, I attended the Oxford Real Farming Conference, where one of the seminars discussed methane emissions and cattle. Methane was like the school bully who, on your first day at school, punches you in the face: Christ, it hurts, but you soon get over it. Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, was more like a malevolent teacher who takes an instant dislike to you on day one and plagues the rest of your educational career throughout your time at school.
We should be proud that our country has led the world on methane reduction; indeed, between 1990 and 2020, we reduced our methane emissions by 62%. Currently, the UK is responsible for just 1% of global emissions—and falling, albeit slowly. That is about 1.5 megatonnes of methane. China is responsible for nearly 70 megatonnes, and rising fast.
Before I go any further, I should pay tribute to our wonderful clerks, who, as our chair elaborated, had to change. They were always professional, hard-working, diplomatic and ready to listen to committee members’ suggestions as to who might be invited to give evidence as expert witnesses. This is an important factor because, too often, it is tempting for clerks to invite those who make the most noise: lobbyists and activists; or, perhaps, their own kith and kin, in the shape of civil servants in government departments whose work is centred around the inquiry’s subject matter. Of course, for obvious reasons, it is essential to invite academics who study the said subject.
Make no mistake, I am very happy to listen to all of the above; indeed, their evidence was essential. However, sadly—for it is often they who can provide the solutions—all too often it is the people who do not get invited who are those folk at the sharp end: the practitioners. They are the people who actually undertake the work, and whose experience of what works and what does not is the most valuable.
I was very grateful to the clerks and the chair, who supported my suggested witnesses, often from the private sector, agriculture and the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, particularly Professor John Gilliland, who is an innovative farmer in Northern Ireland. I state my interests, as set out in the register, as a regenerative farmer and landowner in north Norfolk, with a large herd of suckler beef cattle and the ownership and management of the largest, and arguably most important, national nature reserve in the country, Holkham NNR. I shall return to that at the end.
As agriculture is the largest source of domestic methane emissions in the UK, at 49%—and is the sector I understand most—I shall limit my comments to this area. Some 85% of these emissions come from the enteric fermentation process within a cow’s stomach. For the sake of clarity, the vast majority of methane is emitted from the front, not the back, end of a cow, and then a further 15% is emitted from slurry manure. As our chair has mentioned, it is also important to note that we are harnessing methane very successfully in agriculture through the increasing number of anaerobic digesters in the UK, which mimic a cow’s stomach on a much larger scale, capturing the methane and pumping it into the national grid. Crucially, given what happened in Spain recently, this provides a baseload form of energy supply.
It is important to note that globally between 1990 and 2020 it is believed that agricultural methane emissions increased by approximately 12%. Most of this came from less developed countries where populations have increased rapidly and where a gradually improving economic situation has increased the demand for meat in people’s diet. The inquiry looked at various solutions for reducing emissions. The noble Lord, Lord Trees, mentioned diet, feed additives, such as Bovaer, and cattle health, which are very important. Two weeks ago, on a field trip to the Netherlands for our nitrogen inquiry, we saw some really good manure and slurry management which reduces methane emissions.
I have difficulty with the recommendation to reduce the number of large ruminants—by that, obviously, I mean cows. It is true that in the West and the emerging East we all eat too much meat, but we get into very dangerous territory when we start telling people how much meat they can eat. We should, of course, try to educate people on these matters. We must also question the figures emanating from the UN on the standard UN cow used in all methane calculations. A feedlot Hereford bullock eating a diet of maize is very different from an extensively grazed Galloway heifer eating grass all its life, which itself is very different from a Brahman cow in India. There are huge differences in diet, size, length of life and doubtless many other factors. The noble Lord, Lord Trees, made very important points regarding the differences between GWP100 and GWP*.
It is also true that Henry Dimbleby, in his national food strategy, showed that the total biomass of farmed animals has increased by a huge factor since 10,000 BC, when only 2.5 million humans were a tiny proportion of the total biomass of wild animals. That was at the start of the Holocene epoch, when global temperatures entered an unprecedented period of stability and agriculture became possible. Today, the combined weight of all livestock bred for human consumption dwarfs that of the combined weight of all wild mammals and birds, and even adding the combined weight of the now 7.8 billion human population and our domesticated animals, such as pets and horses, it is still much smaller than that of the livestock that we are producing for human consumption.
We clearly have a number of problems: a burgeoning population, leading to a problem of how to feed the world, which we are pretty good at—although we are doing it in perhaps too intensive a way that is not helping biodiversity, et cetera; some of the food is grown in the wrong place; and we have plenty of inequality. Some 50% of the world’s habitable land is put down to agriculture, but of that, 77% is down to either livestock or, pertinently, the production of crops to feed said livestock. In the UK, that figure rises to an astonishing 85%, according to Dimbleby’s food strategy report, although that is partly down to our hilly topography, high rainfall in the west and our temperate climate, which promotes exceptional grass growth. Let us not forget that well-managed, diverse grasslands are very effective carbon sinks, pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and sequestering free nitrogen in the ground. Grassland is an important tool in the fight against climate change, and we should be careful when we recommend excessive tree-planting schemes— I apologise for the slight diversion.
With regard to methane emissions from cattle, we heard from some eminent academics who favoured beef cattle reared in huge feedlots in the USA and Australia, suggesting that because they were being reared on protein-rich diets and thereby putting weight on quicker, and thence being taken to slaughter quicker, over their shortened lifespan they emitted less methane. That is true, but only in isolation. Where did all that food come from? I have just mentioned the percentages of land use—vast acres growing cereals and maize in the USA, and vast quantities of soya being imported from South America. All those feedstuffs are grown with huge tonnages of nitrogen artificially produced using the Haber-Bosch process, which is heavy on energy consumption, with resultant carbon dioxide emissions leading to excess nitrogen pollution, the subject of our current inquiry. Some 50% of nitrogen applied to fields is lost through leaching into watercourses and into the atmosphere. Further, all are cultivated with large machinery emitting another pollutant, nitrous oxide.
In Britain, where we rear beef cattle for human consumption, the vast majority of animals are extensively reared outdoors for six to eight months when the grass is growing, which is all they eat during that time. Hardier breeds such as Belted Galloway, Blue Grey and Highland cattle spend all year outside. They are an essential component in the carbon cycle and the facilitation of healthy biodiversity.
I return to the nature reserve and the cattle. At home, we have to manage the NNR within strict parameters given to us by Natural England. Yes, the cattle are emitting methane while they chew the cud, but they are also chomping the grass to the correct sward lengths—through careful management as to how long they stay on a particular freshwater marsh, how much grass they eat and how low they eat it to—by which these differing heights and conditions of grassland allow a rich assemblage of differing visiting breeding birds, such as waders, waterfowl and raptors, including marsh harriers, to breed. Of course, their muck returns natural nitrogen to the ground, among other organic matter, and provides essential habitat for dung beetles and all manner of insects at the bottom of the food chain to breed, thereby starting the whole cycle over again and supporting all life.
As we are learning in our current inquiry into nitrogen, reducing emissions is a complicated job. If one concentrates too hard on one reduction, then the law of unintended consequences often leads to an increase in another area.
Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)
My Lords, I am delighted to be a member of the Environment and Climate Change Committee under the excellent and expert chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan. I joined the committee just as the report was being finalised, so I regard myself as a methane learner rather than as a serious contributor to this excellent report. However, I was struck by two things. The first, as some others have mentioned, was the sheer potency of methane, which is 80 times more potent than CO2 but with a much shorter lifespan, remaining in the atmosphere for around 12 years compared to CO2 remaining for up to 2,000 years. This means that curbing methane production is a highly effective way of reducing global emissions overall, as the noble Lord, Lord Trees, has eloquently said.
The second striking point was how much methane emissions had already been reduced in this country and how much harder it will be to reduce emissions in future—hence the report’s title, Methane: Keep Up the Momentum.
As for our recommendations, I want to focus on only two things. First, I really do think that it would help if the Government were to publish a methane action plan in order to show clearly, both here in Britain and to others, our determination to take the necessary action. It disappointing that the Government have rejected that recommendation. Can the Minister confirm that the updated plan for carbon budgets will set out in detail key methane policies for the period up to 2030?
Secondly, we must do all we can to encourage other countries to reduce methane emissions. In particular, it is disappointing that, since the 2021 Global Methane Pledge was launched under the UK’s COP presidency, global methane emissions have continued to rise; and that the 2021 methane pledge looks increasingly unrealisable. Reversing this trend will be all the harder now that the Americans have left the field; indeed, at times, they seem to be tearing up the pitch. The Minister will, I hope, confirm that the UK will reinforce its efforts to persuade others to honour their objectives, working with like-minded nations and groupings—including the EU and New Zealand—in particular at COP 30.
I shall now focus on a slightly broader point. The overall context for countering climate change has become quite a bit bleaker since we wrote our report. Wars proliferate. The United States has, as I said, left the field. But the challenges are as difficult and important as ever. The Climate Change Committee’s recent assessment that the UK’s preparations for climate change are inadequate gives us all at least pause for thought. I hope that the Minister will give us his views on that assessment as he winds up. In a democracy, it is never easy to take tough decisions now to benefit future generations, but that is the responsible thing to do. Future generations will not look kindly on us if we fail. Can the Minister confirm that the Government remain utterly committed to reaching net zero by 2050 and to meeting the new target in this year’s nationally determined contribution?
I have one final point to make. This morning, a friend asked me what I was going to do today. I said that I would be speaking in a debate here in the House of Lords on methane. “Oh God, how boring”, she said. I disabused her, of course, but she hit on a rather crucial point. There is a huge gap between the readily understandable goal—cooling the planet over the next 50 years or so, saving millions of lives—and what are for many people the numbingly boring details needed to achieve that goal, including aerobic digesters and changes in cattle feed, important though they are. Can the Minister confirm that the Government will do all they can to close that gap and, in their communications, to link the measures with the goal?
Lord Ravensdale (CB)
My Lords, first, I declare my interest as a chief engineer working for AtkinsRéalis. I thank the committee’s chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, for all her work in steering the committee through this inquiry and for her excellent introduction to the debate. I also thank the committee and its staff, who worked really hard to produce an important report that sheds light on an important and often underappreciated facet of climate policy.
Methane is actually a really interesting technical problem due to its impact across many sectors and one that the UK has had considerable success in tackling, as other noble Lords have said. Given the comprehensive remarks from other noble Lords, I will focus on only a few areas.
To begin with, it is worth restating some of what the noble Lord, Lord Trees, said about metrics and measurements: they are central to the consideration of methane because of its nature as a flow gas rather than a stock gas. If a constant amount of methane is being emitted into the atmosphere, the warming impact will be a one-off hit. To a first approximation, the methane breaks down in the atmosphere as quickly as it is being replaced over the medium term. This is different from the nature of CO2, which remains in the atmosphere for centuries, and therefore warming will increase over time for a constant source of emissions.
This leads us to problems with trying to apply a global warming potential to methane as a comparison to CO2 by using a single metric, which has been the approach undertaken so far. Currently, the UK uses Global Warming Potential 100—GWP100—which is a comparison over a 100-year horizon. Analysing methane using this metric leads to a GWP of 28 for methane; in other words, it has 28 times the warming impact of CO2. However, this figure misses the complexities in methane being a flow gas rather than a stock gas. It is worth restating what Professor Myles Allen said during our inquiry, that
“expressing methane emissions as a carbon dioxide equivalent using GWP100 overstates the warming impact of a constant source of methane by a factor of three to four and understates the impact of any new methane source by a factor of four to five”.
That illustrates that having a more nuanced view of the impact of methane emissions than GWP100 is critical for policy-making. Factors of three to five are not small discrepancies.
How the UK responds to climate change depends on a balanced assessment across emissions sources, so having a true understanding of the actual warming impact of emissions is vital. It is for that reason that the Select Committee recommended, in its recommendation 7, that the UK should unilaterally implement an auxiliary metric to better reflect the warming impact of methane and help shape effective policy in the UK. In my view, this is the key recommendation of the report, on how we view that data and how we look at those metrics. I hope that the Minister and his team can look again at the recommendation for an auxiliary metric, which would help us respond to the challenges around methane and other gases by ensuring that they are balanced effectively.
My second point is about regulation. We heard witnesses describe the complex picture around methane regulation, with overlaps between four separate regulators—the Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Executive, the North Sea Transition Authority and the Offshore Petroleum Regulator for Environment and Decommissioning—which cover agriculture, waste management and oil and gas. That is a complex regulatory picture, and in our questioning of the regulators we uncovered overlap and areas that are falling in the gaps between the regulators.
A good example of that is the Environment Agency. Witnesses from the EA stated:
“To be absolutely clear, we have no statutory duty around methane”.
It was clear from their evidence that this is a significant gap and affects how the sector is regulated. Looking more widely, this also chimes with the excellent Corry review recently commissioned by the Defra Secretary of State, which recommended that the statutory duties, principles and codes of Defra regulators should be consolidated to a core set, reflecting the Government’s priorities. If the EA and other regulators had a clear net-zero duty, this would provide important clarity and close gaps in the regulation of methane. It would also have wider benefits across the sector; for example, by streamlining the build-out of clean energy infrastructure. Can the Minister say what consideration the Government are giving to the important area of consolidating the regulators’ duties? This builds on the work that was done on Ofgem under the previous Government and through the Energy Act 2023.
The noble Earl, Lord Leicester, talked about complexity. My final point is about the importance of bringing in a systems approach to net zero to ensure that all departments and regulators are fully joined up in pursuit of this goal. Some important steps forward have been taken in this area, particularly in energy, but a 2020 report by the noble Lord, Lord Vallance, Achieving Net Zero Carbon Emissions Through a Whole Systems Approach, remains as relevant as ever. As well as recommendations on duties for regulators, as I have touched on, it includes proposals for an operational group to drive delivery across government and departments and, on the data side, for the establishment of an analytical hub. The methane issue, touching as it does many sectors and areas of the economy, is an excellent illustration of why a systems approach is required. I urge the Government to return to some of the points in the 2020 report to ensure joined-up delivery in this space and to build on the great progress being made.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful for the opportunity to say a few words in the gap. I congratulate the committee on its report and the chair on her opening speech and on securing the debate.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Jay, I am a methane learner. I remember first discovering its importance in the late 1980s, when I talked to Sir Jack Lewis, who had been appointed by Mrs Thatcher as chair of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and who later became a Member of this House. It struck me at the time that this concentration—80 times, as has been mentioned several times—was very powerful stuff. I think it is a 45% reduction that would help meet our Paris climate change target of 2030.
On the other hand, I am encouraged by some recent research. Last year, I came across something by Professor Vincent Gauci of the University of Birmingham. Apparently, microbes in tree bark in the world’s forests absorb much more methane than previously thought. Tree bark has previously been overlooked for its climate contribution. Apparently, if all the tree bark in the world was laid flat, it would cover the surface of the earth, so it represents a vast area for gas exchange between bark and atmosphere.
Scientific research these days is often about vast quantities of data generated in a wide variety of areas, of which climate change is one. Last Friday, I happened to visit the Harwell Space Cluster. Believe me, the sheer amount of data it deals with from earth observation satellites is phenomenal, as I am sure the Committee will appreciate. I make the point to my noble friend the Minister and others that it is vital to continue to collect this data. I will direct my remarks towards chapter 3 of the committee’s report, recommendation 7 and the Government’s response to it.
Ordinarily, to say something like “collect the data” would be neither unusual nor particularly interesting. However, we live in a time when things are changing. On 16 April, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced a whole list of datasets regarding ocean monitoring that will be removed by the middle of this month. On 23 April, the BBC reported:
“Swathes of scientific data deletions are sweeping across US government websites—with decades of health, climate change and extreme weather research at risk. Now, scientists are racing to save their work before it’s lost”.
This is a tremendously important point. I can give the Committee further examples. Apparently, somebody researching the history of the Greenland ice sheet is afraid that all the data related to it will be deleted by the American authorities one way or another. It may be that the data shows a different pattern of Greenland’s ice sheets in the past that would affect our calculation of the future.
My time is almost up, so my plea to my noble friend the Minister is that, when he takes part in discussions with other countries on behalf of the British Government—I believe there is a UNFCCC conference in June 2027 on the horizon—he will do everything he can to ensure that we continue to collect the data without which debates like this are not possible and without which we cannot measure and make the progress we need to make on climate change.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, before I start my speech, I will reflect the comments that we have just heard. I did not manage to get into the noble Viscount’s Oral Question today, but I am deeply concerned about what the Americans are doing to the fundamental scientific basis for our understanding of climate, so I echo those comments.
As a member of this Select Committee, I speak in support of the report, and I thank our excellent clerks and researchers and everyone who made it possible, including our witnesses and our chair. If the noble Lord, Lord Jay, is a climate methane learner, at times I felt like a methane mediator. This was a difficult report to get over the line, but I am very pleased that we managed to do so. I also thank the Government and the Minister for their response. I note that we have a shared ambition in this area, if somewhat different approaches.
I will speak on the need for urgency in the global fight against climate change and on the need to buy time in our fight for survival, which can be brought about only by cutting our methane emissions now. I want to see the Government become the global champion that the pledge deserves. The UK has a real opportunity, having joined Brazil in co-chairing the Climate and Clean Air Coalition. The one thing that we do not have is time. As Bill McKibben has said:
“If we don’t win very quickly on climate change, then we will never win … It’s what makes it different from every other problem our political systems have faced”.
As we have heard, methane is the second-most significant greenhouse gas. While it has a short lifespan— I like the analogy between the bully and the teacher—compared to carbon dioxide, its potency as a heat-trapping gas is far greater: it is some 80 times more powerful than CO2 over 20 years. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, said, in that way, it is a devastating gas. Methane emissions contribute to one-third of global warming. Tackling methane is rightly recognised as one of the fastest and most cost-effective ways to limit the near-term global temperature rises.
Professor Forster, in his evidence to the committee, said that such actions
“could lower the trajectory of global warming from 0.25 degrees celsius per decade to 0.1 degrees celsius”.
Cutting methane emissions rapidly does not just limit future warming; it slows rates of warming over the coming decades to buy time to implement the deeper and far more complex decarbonisation actions that we must take. Methane cuts are essential in reducing the immediate, devastating and costly real-world impacts of extreme weather and crop loss that we face now and will experience much more going into the 2040s. We have no other policy options to buy time—this is the only one.
The noble Earl, Lord Leicester, said that we should rightly be proud of what the UK has achieved to date. We achieved a 62% drop between 1990 and 2020, a larger percentage than any other OECD country. The UK rightly played a pivotal role in the Global Methane Pledge at COP 26, where 150 countries signed up to reduce their methane emissions by 30% by 2030.
I welcome the Government’s engagement with our recommendations—that is beneficial. The Government point to the existing delivery plan for carbon budgets and the framework for tackling methane. They highlight ongoing work across sectors and are leveraging the UK’s expertise internationally. However, our report argues that the Government must go further if the UK is truly to solidify its role as a global leader and champion the methane reductions required. The Select Committee recommends publishing a dedicated UK methane action plan providing clarity and focus for all sectors, including sector-specific targets and plans. As the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, said, it is disappointing that the Government have disagreed with this recommendation, saying instead that they are covered in existing budgets. While methane is indeed part of the broader net-zero strategy, the unique nature of methane and the opportunities it presents warrant a specific, transparent and dedicated plan outlining priority actions, costs and benefits.
I will just say a quick word specifically about the sector. Farming is now the key sector: it is the largest UK source, contributing half of all our methane, 85% of which comes from cattle. As the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, said, farming is perhaps more exposed than any other sector in the UK. Indeed, as we move forward, we have very difficult choices ahead. It is important that we have a balance in these things, but there are certain quick wins that we can do. We need slurry management, selective breeding and the farming and food road map. As the noble Lord, Lord Trees, said, farmers have the knowledge but need the power to do something about this.
In our energy sector, we are wasting enough energy from venting and flaring to power 700,000 homes. Venting and flaring need to end. I point out the recommendation for urgent transparency and accountability in these sectors.
Turning to waste, we need to do more and make sure that we have food collection across the country and enough anaerobic digesters to make that target a reality. We need to do more on landfill and about the fact that waste crime is out of control in this country, with 18% of our waste ending up in the hands of criminals.
The Government mention the UK Emissions Trading Scheme Authority and are considering including methane emissions from the upstream oil and gas sector. This is welcome, but it is not the commitment needed to align with our international partners, who are developing robust standards, including for imports. Robust MMRV is critical for both domestic progress and international accountability. I hope that we will see a UK-EU ETS alignment soon and that the UK will meet EU standards in this area.
The report called for the UK to use its expertise to encourage the establishment of an international body to verify the methane pledge participants’ action plans. The Government’s response points to the Climate and Clean Air Coalition as being a well-placed body. We recognise that it is valuable, but we call specifically for a body focused on verification to ensure accountability and the transparency of data. Data from the UN’s alert system, highlighted at COP 29, showed a stark gap: more than 1,200 alerts about large oil and gas plumes were issued, but only 1% of those resulted in mitigation steps. Data is helpful but if nothing is done with it, it is no better than having no data at all.
The UK, having co-launched this, has a real opportunity. We should go beyond domestic action and do more in the international sphere. We should not be content with just keeping our work at home. We now have 25 satellites orbiting the world; super emitters have nowhere to hide. Abating leaks needs to be done on an international scale. As somebody in the UN said:
“It’s plumbing. It’s not rocket science”.
Abandoned fossil fuel infrastructure now emits more methane than Iran and is fourth-largest global source. The International Energy Agency’s Global Methane Tracker 2025 report, just issued, shows that global methane emissions are stubbornly high. There were nearly 120 million tonnes of methane emissions in 2023, and the global energy sector may have emissions that are 70% higher than officially reported.
I call on the Government to do more with our international oil and gas expertise, particularly in leak detection and repair, and to do more to help countries that are struggling to repair their leaks. This is one way in which the UK Government could demonstrate their leadership in this area and provide a very useful source of help to the globe.
To conclude, a dedicated methane action plan is necessary for clarity and focus, particularly for harder to abate areas. I call on the UK to go further and really be the true champion this treaty requires. Deploying our technical expertise to help identify and fix large leaks internationally is a powerful example of how we can drive action, slow the immediate pace of global warming and keep up the vital momentum on this crucial climate issue.
Lord Roborough (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, on securing this debate, and all members of the Environment and Climate Change Committee on their excellent report Methane: Keep up the Momentum. In particular, we on these Benches appreciate the detailed and pragmatic approach and the opportunity to learn so much about methane emissions and management.
I draw the Grand Committee’s attention to my register of interests, in particular as an extensive grazing-based dairy and stock farmer and an investor in Agricarbon, Circular Algorithmic and Data Systems, Cecil Earth, Valaris and Noble Corporation.
The issues of methane emissions and their continued rise have been ably explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and the noble Lord, Lord Jay. I fully associate myself with those remarks but do not intend to repeat them.
We on these Benches understand that environmental responsibility means striking a balance between affordability and necessity. For Governments and individuals to have a realistic probability of success in preventing greenhouse gases causing disastrous climate change outcomes, we must forget pursuing fantasies of the perfect with high-cost, headline-grabbing technologies and instead make pragmatic, and affordable choices every day using cost-effective solutions and innovations.
This is why we welcome the committee’s emphasis on such practical strategies to reduce methane. We also welcome the opportunity to reflect on how we as a country can go further by building on past achievements, supporting innovation and placing trust in our industries, farmers and communities.
The UK has made remarkable progress. Since 1990, we have reduced our methane emissions by more than 60%. This is more than almost any other major economy. That achievement should be a source of national pride. In fact, as president of COP 26 , the UK played a central role in launching the global methane pledge, an international effort to reduce global anthropogenic methane emissions by at least 30% by 2030.
Domestically, we have led by example in key areas. In energy, we have seen methane leaks from oil and gas production reduced significantly through strong collaboration between government and industry and through smart, proportionate regulation. In agriculture, we have introduced initiatives such as the slurry infrastructure grant, helping farmers reduce emissions while continuing to feed the nation and remain globally competitive. In waste, we have seen dramatic reductions in landfill methane emissions, largely thanks to better waste processing, energy recovery and recycling infrastructure. We must sustain this momentum, and there are several areas where action is clearly required.
The agriculture sector is now the UK’s largest source of methane emissions after the reductions achieved in other sectors, primarily from livestock and manure. The committee rightly highlights the potential of innovation; feed additives, selective breeding—accelerated by precision breeding as the noble Lord, Lord Trees, highlighted—and improved animal health all offer effective ways to reduce emissions without cutting production, but we must be clear: our farmers are not the problem. They are stewards of our land, providers of our food and vital players in restoring nature and reducing net greenhouse gas emissions. We must not burden them with unrealistic or punitive targets. Instead, we must provide them with the tools, certainty and support they need to innovate and invest.
Farming is a business, and like any business, it must remain viable if it is to be sustainable. We must be careful not to place the blame on farming for global warming, when farmers are simply responding to economic pressures from their customers for wholesome, affordable food. Any measures that we require farmers to take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will lead to higher food prices and these have to be affordable for hard working families. We must also be careful not to place our farmers at a competitive disadvantage to overseas farmers, as this will simply lead to a greater reliance on higher emissions, lower cost imported food and undermined viability for our farmers, as the noble Lord, Lord Trees, warned.
The NFU has outlined the importance of promoting sustainable practices, and many farmers are ahead of the curve, but they need clarity. They need policy frameworks that empower rather than restrict and financial incentives that are practical and accessible. I fully support the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and his comments about assessing the holistic farm picture, including carbon sequestration when calculating the net farm greenhouse gas emissions footprint. As the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, highlighted with the bark example, this is still likely to be inaccurate as science is still developing.
On the oil and gas sector, we on these Benches believe in an affordable energy transition, incorporating continued development of our own gas resources in order to make energy bills affordable for consumers, restore our industry’s competitiveness and reduce our dependence on imported energy. We must ensure that any such development is done with best practice around management of methane emissions, including restricting flaring and venting. Our North Sea energy sector has led the world in technology adoption. For example, our offshore wells have been hydraulically fractured or fracked since 1980, and we can do so again in methane management.
Our energy sector has already reduced methane emissions by 70% since 2002, including a 48% reduction in flaring since 2018—remarkable achievements. Given how clean our North Sea fossil fuel sector has become, I ask the Minister whether it is better to continue to develop our oil and gas resources, rather than import dirtier products from overseas. I also heartily endorse comments from the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, in his call for more digestate gas entering our gas network.
We need better data and more accurate emissions accounting. It is clear from the comments of Professor Hamburg that we in this country have world-leading expertise in monitoring and evaluating emissions, putting us in a strong position to drive international understanding. This means embracing a dual approach that many Lords have mentioned, including both GWP100 and also GWP*, which better reflects the warming profile of short-lived gases such as methane. It also means recognising the nutritional value of food and the central importance of cheap energy to our economy, alongside their carbon footprints. We must not fall into the trap of measuring environmental impact in a vacuum, neglecting wider considerations like food and energy security, affordability and trade competitiveness.
We must avoid adopting ideological arguments and look to pragmatic, evidence-led decision-making. The reduction in methane emissions should be achieved not through arbitrary targets but through investment, innovation and science-based policy. On reading the report and listening to noble Lords in this debate, I was particularly struck by the opportunity that we have to share best practice and technology that we have learned and developed since 1990 with other countries. The Green Alliance highlighted the opportunity in Latin America to help shape its policy on landfill gas capture. I ask the Minister what this Government are doing to promote the export of our expertise to these other countries.
A number of noble Lords mentioned the emissions trading scheme. I should strike a note of caution in the desire to include methane within the ETS, as its shorter duration is unlikely to fit comfortably with the persistence of carbon itself. In a way, we are talking about two different things and it becomes a confusing picture if we put methane into the carbon trading system. I am most interested in the Minister’s view on this matter.
In conclusion, the committee’s report is not just a reminder of what we must do but a testament to what we have already achieved and a call to build upon that success. Methane mitigation is not a fringe issue; it is central to achieving our climate goals. It is an opportunity to protect our environment and support our economy. I commend the committee for its work and urge the Government to act with clarity domestically and with energy internationally.
The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath) (Lab)
My Lords, it has been an interesting debate. Like members of the Grand Committee, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, for initiating the debate and her chairmanship of the Environment and Climate Change Committee. The committee’s report on methane emissions has shed light on one of the most pressing challenges we face in the pathway to net zero. I thank all noble Lords who took part in the production of the report, as well as those who participated in this well thought-out and thorough debate.
I go back to the beginning, the noble Baroness’s speech, when she referred to the outcome of the Select Committee report as being a message of hope. I agree. I should also go back to what the noble Lord, Lord Trees, and other noble Lords pointed out about the reduction in methane emissions, which must be counted. While there can never be complacency in this area, this has to be counted as a significant achievement by this country.
I also accept the point from the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, that we need to keep up the momentum. As noble Lords have said, the science on this is unequivocal: methane is responsible for almost one-third of global warming since the Industrial Revolution. However, as the noble Baroness explained, it remains in the atmosphere for only a fraction of time—approximately 12 years. Therefore, reducing those emissions is one of the fastest ways that we can avert one of our most acute climate change risks and keep the Paris Agreement in reach, which is a fundamental global challenge that we face.
The independent advice from the Climate Change Committee ahead of our next carbon budget sets a cross-economy pathway to reduce emissions, including measures that contribute to the reduction of methane emissions. We are considering the recently received Climate Change Committee’s report and we are bound to respond by summer 2026.
Let me make this clear. The noble Lord, Lord Jay, asked whether we are absolutely committed to net zero. The answer is yes; we have to be: the science about the impact of climate change is so convincing. We have to stay determined. One of the tragedies of current political discourse is that there have been so many attacks on net zero. The ludicrous idea that the measures being taken on net zero have led to damage to our economy is so nonsensical, because the one thing on which I am clear is that the big issue on energy prices has nothing to do with the policies that have been taken on net zero but everything to do with our vulnerability to the international fossil fuel market.
In February, the CBI produced a report on what I think was described as the green economy. A 10% increase in the green economy in 2023 compares to a very modest increase generally, and nearly 1 million people are employed in the green sector overall. One can make a very convincing argument that investing in net zero, which we have to do, is actually a way to kick-start growth in the economy. We have this mission statement and I have taken part in a number of cross-government discussions over the last few weeks: the Government are absolutely committed. I take the point from the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, that we need a practical approach to making progress, but there cannot be a let-up in the drive to net zero.
This is the context in which we need to consider the recommendation of the committee to which noble Lords have referred and the question of an action plan. It is obvious that the response given in our written report is disappointing, and I am sorry that I am not in a position to overturn that in the light of your Lordships’ contributions. However, we basically believe that this is covered in our existing delivery plan for carbon budgets. The point I make is that carbon budgets are the very engine room of our pathway to net zero. We are absolutely committed to including key methane policies in the carbon budgets plan, covering the period up to 2030, which will contribute to the Global Methane Pledge.
Under the Climate Change Act, legally binding carbon budget targets require domestic reductions across all greenhouse gases, including methane, to keep us on track to meet net zero. As I have said, we are committed to a progress report in relation to the fourth, fifth and sixth carbon budgets, and we have just received the advice from the Climate Change Committee in relation to the seventh carbon budget.
On the EU and UK trading emissions system, at this stage all I can say to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, is that we understand the importance of what he is saying. We are in discussions at the moment, but I am afraid that I cannot go any further at this point.
We had very interesting insights into agriculture. It is the largest source of UK methane emissions, and we were treated to expert interventions from my noble friend Lord Grantchester, the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, and the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, who all made important points. I very much take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, about the impact of measures on food prices. This is clearly a tension that Governments have been facing for many years, which also relates to the issue of welfare standards, as well as comparisons between this country and others, and it feeds into discussions on trade. It is a very difficult and challenging issue.
It is right to place on record my gratitude to the National Farmers’ Union for its valuable contribution to the Select Committee. I certainly appreciate the efforts of farmers in this area and find no attraction whatever in a punitive approach. When I was a Minister in Defra—I had a joint ministerial job across Defra and DECC, as it was called in 2008—I took part in discussions with the NFU on reducing emissions in the agricultural sector. I think it is right to say that it gladly took part in those discussions, and that co-operation has continued.
We are committed to introducing a land use framework, which will make environmental land management schemes work for farmers. Defra is also looking at a number of other measures to reduce emissions from livestock, alongside the upcoming food strategy and farming road map. I am afraid that I cannot give a definite date to the noble Baroness, but we think that this will be a credible plan to reduce food and farming emissions by working closely with stakeholders.
The noble Lord, Lord Trees, made a number of comments about accurate reporting, and other noble Lords added to those discussions. There was reference to recommendation 7, in which the Select Committee asked the Government to move unilaterally to an auxiliary metric. It also asks us to play an active role in international discussions as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change considers the need to review those common metrics by no later than 2028.
There are two points to be made here. It is clearly important that we have international reporting and that there is consistency in that. I take the point that some noble Lords here are critical about some of the standards of that reporting. However, I say to noble Lords—including my noble friend Lord Stansgate—that we will take an active role in UNFCCC discussions on common metrics. The agenda item will be continued in June 2027, and we will continue to be led by the best available science and international consensus. I have taken note of a number of comments made today by noble Lords.
On my noble friend Lord Grantchester’s comments on the dairy demonstrator project, I cannot go further than our response to recommendation 12. However, that project has now commenced, following the signing of the contract, and we will obviously watch its progress with a great deal of interest.
On the comments made by the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, I take his point about the important role that anaerobic digestion has to play in meeting net-zero goals. We think that, with the right standards of controls in place, it presents opportunities for improved nutrition management, nutrient management and a nutrient circular economy. There are, as he knows, challenges in relation to the risk of improper management, which can lead to issues with environmental risk. However, we certainly think that it has a role to play, and I will take note of the noble Earl’s comments.
The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, made a number of interesting comments too. I was especially interested in the points he made about regulators. Clearly, in a field where a number of regulators come into play, the key is to make sure that they work together and that there is no overlap or duplicated approaches. We have announced plans to conduct an internal review of regulations and regulators at Defra, which should help the noble Lord in that area.
I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, on fossil fuels and the role of the North Sea, that clearly this has been a crucially important sector of our economy for many years. We still have many highly skilled people working there, but we lost 70,000 people in the last 10 years under the previous Government. It is called a super-mature basin, and it is declining. Oil and gas have a role to play in the future, but we are right to go for a balance between different technologies. The emphasis we are making on nuclear as a baseload and putting huge effort into renewables, while having gas as a strategic reserve, is the right way to go forward.
On venting and flaring, which noble Lords have raised before both in the Chamber and here, my understanding is that the regulator is already taking action to increase transparency and accountability. In March 2024, the North Sea Transition Authority published its emissions reduction plan, requiring industry to reduce flaring and venting.
I am not sure for how long I am allowed to speak here, but I will just turn to international leadership. Noble Lords have said that the UK is in a great position to exercise international leadership, and I agree with that prospect. It is on a par with the country being the first major colony to establish a net-zero target in law, and I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady May, for her leadership, which her party unfortunately seems to have forgotten in its fast retreat from net zero. I regret that, because the loss of consensus is a serious matter for the country and the future. We saw that at the local elections recently, during which net zero was attacked by some political parties.
It is important that we maintain our leadership. During the COP 26 presidency, as the noble Baroness said, we were one of the first countries to join the Global Methane Pledge. We are stepping up our efforts to deliver on the pledge through funding to support developing countries. We were one of the 30 signatories to the Declaration on Reducing Methane from Organic Waste at COP 29. Now, of course, we are thinking about COP 30 in Brazil, which is only a few months away, and we are working very hard with the COP 30 presidency, as noble Lords have suggested.
From the Government’s point of view, this is a very interesting report. I know that noble Lords are disappointed with one or two of our responses, but the overall response accepts that this is a thoroughly prepared and researched report. As the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, said, the witnesses came from a wide variety of backgrounds. It is clear that the committee had to give a great deal of thought to the recommendations; we should acknowledge that. We accept the core thrust of the report. Although I have disappointed noble Lords again tonight in relation to the action plan, there will be no lack of action by the Government in responding and in making sure that we make progress on methane reductions, but we think that the carbon budget process is the right way to go forward.
In conclusion, I thank noble Lords for what has been a really fascinating and helpful discussion; I can assure noble Lords that it will inform policy development in future.
Baroness Sheehan (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. I thank all contributors for their valuable and well-thought-out responses to this report; they are very much appreciated. I expected no less from my esteemed colleagues on the committee because their participation in the discussions, as well as the engaged way in which their contributions were made during our deliberations, left me in no doubt that we would have a very good debate today.
I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, for his contribution in the gap. His point—and that of the noble Lord, Lord Jay—about the disturbing international scenario in which we now find ourselves will prove a challenge in terms of tackling not just methane emissions but carbon dioxide emissions. I was a bit heartened by China’s recent announcement that it will not ease up on its efforts to tackle climate change. Indeed, at a UN summit as a precursor to the COP 30 meeting, it announced that its NDC, which will be due some time before COP 30, will encompass sector-wide emissions across the economy; that was heartening to hear. Not only will they cover the whole economy: they will cover all greenhouse gases, including methane. We will wait with interest to see the detail.
I will not detain noble Lords too long—I am sure that we all need to move on—but I stress the need for better communication to farmers, which the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, mentioned. There was consensus on this from the NFU, the Nature Friendly Farming Network, and the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board. Without farmers on board, we will not get to grips with methane either at home or abroad.
I am not going to go into detail on the other contributions, save to say that I was heartened by what I heard. Let me just leave noble Lords with the thought that carbon dioxide concentrations are increasing in the atmosphere. The Mauna Loa Observatory—I hope that NOAA does not get to erase all this data—has been monitoring carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. It has not been monitoring it for the past 800,000 years, but we have data from ice cores in Antarctica that shows that from a steady baseline of 280 parts per million of carbon dioxide before the Industrial Revolution, we have seen, in terms of ecological time, a straight-line increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide to today’s average of 426 parts per million.
We are in uncharted territory, so tackling the short-term but powerful greenhouse gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, are our route to avoiding some of the disastrous tipping points that we are otherwise hurtling towards. We have an opportunity to buy time, and we should take it. I beg to move.