Report Series: Mitigating Methane: A Global Health Strategy

On behalf of the  Global Climate and Health Alliance (GCHA), Abt Global produced a series of reports identifying the correlations between methane emissions and public health.

Capable of heating the environment 80 times more than carbon dioxide, methane is an enormous threat to climate resilience. It accounts for 30 percent of the rise in global temperatures, and worsens air quality by contributing to the creation of ground-level ozone, a toxic air pollutant that causes more than 1 million respiratory deaths in adults each year. Methane emitted today only remains in the atmosphere for 12 years, which means that while methane exerts health and climate effects for several years after being released into the atmosphere, cutting methane now can deliver immediate and substantial health benefits and buy time to reduce emissions of longer-lived greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.

Half of the methane in the atmosphere is the result of human activity, and 95 percent of that comes from one of three sectors: energy, agriculture, and waste. This report series identifies top opportunities to reduce methane emissions in the energy, waste, and agriculture sectors to improve human health.

Dive into each report to learn more about methane’s health impacts by sector and opportunities for the health community to reduce emissions at international, national, and local levels.

Click an image below to download the PDF.