The UK’s climate is shifting faster than scientists expected. Five heatwaves, widespread drought and wildfires, and 35°C breached in four consecutive months made the summer of 2026 the hottest on record. What is particularly sobering is the news that it has been linked to an estimated . Such summers are now around 130 times more likely due to human-caused climate change and will become more frequent as the world passes 1.5°C of warming.
Cutting methane is vital to successful climate action
Methane is a major contributor to climate change, 80 times more potent than CO2. The UK made significant progress in reducing its output since the 1990s, with emissions falling from 4,500 to 2,000 thousand tonnes. Unfortunately, progress has stalled since 2016.
The 2021 COP26 climate summit’s roadmap for methane emissions requires a 30 per cent reduction between 2020 and 2030, a commitment formalised through the Global Methane Pledge.
Keeping the Paris Agreement’s target not to breach 1.5°C of warming alive now rests on meeting this pledge, of which the UK is a champion and 159 other governments are signed up to. But, halfway through this crucial decade to cut methane, the goal is starting to feel out of reach.
A year ago, the UK produced its Methane Action Plan (MAP), aiming to reduce emissions by 450kt by 2030, which is a reduction of 21 per cent on 2020 levels. The aim falls well short of the global target. Despite the limited ambition, very few policies in the UK’s plan have been implemented to achieve even this. The current estimate is of a 12 per cent cut by the end of the decade.
We’re tracking UK progress
As what happens to methane is so important for climate action, we’ve started to track the UK’s progress on bringing its emissions down.
We’ll keep updating this tracker as new data becomes available and government policy develops. Unfortunately, despite technological advancements allowing methane to be measured with greater accuracy, official statistics on methane emissions from all sectors lack robustness. One thing we are pushing for is much better monitoring and verification. We have used the best available information but would welcome any important intel to help us keep it current.
We’re tracking progress on methane reduction policies in the three big source sectors: agriculture, energy and waste. Our site allows users to interact and see what the government policies at play are doing to support the UK’s overall emissions reduction by 2030, based on the findings in The climate emergency brake report last year. Some key steps the government could take are to drive forward the use of methane suppressants for the UK’s dairy cows; end routine venting and flaring in natural gas extraction; and develop a long term plan to capture 80 per cent of landfill methane emissions.
As well as UK policies, we’re tracking which countries have signed up to the Global Methane Pledge, which have national plans in place and which have specified ambitions. We consider the scale of reductions required by the signatories to achieve the 30 per cent global reduction target.
Methane’s top of the COP31 agenda
At the next international climate summit in Antalya, Türkiye (COP31), which kicks off next week, methane will be a priority topic. This comes a year after the UN’s first full assessment of the Global Methane Pledge, which found that, rather than falling, global methane emissions are rising. Several big emitters, like Russia and India, haven’t signed up to the pledge, so the task ahead is challenging for its signatories to collectively succeed in hitting the target.
However, there is cause for hope because the means to close the gap already exist. The UN report found over 80 per cent of the 2030 reduction could be achieved at low cost.
Closing this gap is the real test for countries at COP31, not least for the UK. As a pledge champion, we have a platform to urge other countries towards larger and faster methane reductions. But influence abroad depends on the UK’s record at home. We are struggling to reach a relatively modest goal, which is a weak basis from which to argue that others should do more. The clearest signal the UK could send at COP31 would be higher ambition and demonstrating exactly how it intends to fully implement its Methane Action Plan.
Explore our UK Methane Policy Tracker
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