Methane in mind

People are paying a lot more attention to methane than they used to. For many of us, it’s because our energy bills are rocketing – both for gas and electricity. With Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine causing uncertainty and potential disruption to the supply of gas and oil – along with horrific destruction, death and upheaval to millions – this will not be a quick problem to solve.

Plugging the leaks would also stop those tonnes of methane from spending the next two decades heating the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas. On that timescale, methane is 80 times more potent a global-warming driver than carbon dioxide, a fact to which governments and policy-makers are finally waking up.